


The Madman

by fannishliss



Series: Kink List [17]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AU set in the bad old 1930s, Alternate Natasha Romanov, Alternate Universe, Anal Play, COMPLETE!!!, Cages, Confinement, Feral Behavior, Gothic, Historical References, Horror, Human Experimentation, M/M, Mad Science, Memory Alteration, Mental Institutions, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Prostitution, Steve and Bucky finding true love in the midst of noir and gothic horror, Steve rescues Bucky, Undercover, Violence, bad mental institutions, electroshock, feral bucky, it's meant to be disturbing but not too graphic, lobotomies (implied), no metal arm, poor treatment of mental patients, straitjackets, this is for my kink list challenge, warning: Zola tests on lab animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-25 15:17:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 54,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3815254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fannishliss/pseuds/fannishliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is hired by Zola to document his lab experiments.  When the experiments extend to a human "volunteer" Steve decides enough is enough.<br/>THIS STORY IS NOW COMPLETE.  :D</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Madman

**Author's Note:**

> for my kink list challenge, Cages and Confinement. To avoid mentions of animal testing, skip to chapter two.
> 
>  

Steve crept down the corridor, inch by inch, heart pounding as though each beat would be its last. He felt his chest grow tight and willed himself to breathe, the wheeze kept at bay by sheer willpower.  Zola had promised him an experimental cure, but not until he had proved himself.  
  
This, emphatically, was Steve not proving himself.   
  
The stolen keys felt heavy as lead in his pocket.   
  
Everything felt like a terrible mistake.   
  
The weeks he'd spent in Zola's lab, painstakingly recording the mutilated bodies of mice, rats, guinea pigs, cats, dogs, and monkeys — detailed measurements, drawings, photographs, and verbal descriptions of the heinous wounds the scientist had inflicted, and to what extent those wounds had healed — Steve had known he was in a bad place, taking part in bad things, but he'd parroted Zola's words back to himself: this was all for the betterment of mankind.   
  
He heard the whimpers and cries of suffering animals and turned a deaf ear— literally.  After all, his deaf ear, weak heart, asthmatic lungs, ulcered stomach, and colorblind eyes were the reason he had wanted this job.  Zola had sized him up at one glance, seen that he had everything to gain and nothing to lose, and hired him on.  His art school background had qualified him, but his willingness to sleep in a corner and eat what Zola fed him, got him hired.   
  
The cries of the animals, their suffering, sad eyes, had bothered him. Of course they had.  He wasn't a monster.  But he tried to view Zola's experiments with perspective. As a human being, one's first duty was to the good of other humans — right?  
  
After a few weeks, Steve couldn't say any more.  He was almost glad that the food Zola gave him contained almost no meat.  He didn't think he knowingly chew even the smallest bit of flesh without imagining the ruined bodies of the animals.   
  
Steve quashed his rebellious heart. His own mother — wouldn't he have traded the lives of every animal in the building ten times over, if her suffering could have been eased — if the sacrifice of their brief lives could have brought about her extended comfort — if spilling their blood could have saved her life?   
  
He knew his answer, though it made him hang his head in shame.  He squashed his urge to rebel, silenced his conscience and its sympathetic response to the monkeys' angry screams — till one night, he was awakened by a cry that sounded almost human.  
  
Steve tossed and turned on his little cot, the anguished wail ringing in his head.   
  
Next morning, he said nothing.  Zola peered at him through narrow eyes.  
  
"We have a new test subject — a volunteer," Zola said.  His soft, high voice, which Steve had initially found comforting, now made his skin crawl.  
  
"A volunteer?" Steve repeated dully.  Monkey 3257 had died in the night; weigh, measure, photograph, draw, and in particular document the graft areas, careful to describe the inflammations.  
  
"A madman," Zola said carelessly.  "One too many attempted suicides has left his brain hopelessly muddled.  He's been signed over into our care."  
  
Steve repressed his shudder and focused his attention on the corpse of the monkey.    
  
"Well," Zola said, with a dismissive sniff, looking over Steve’s shoulder.  "Your drawings are excellent, Rogers.  You have great potential.  I very much appreciate your contribution to the work."  
  
"Thank you, Doctor Zola," Steve dutifully replied, even as gooseflesh prickled all up and down his limbs in revulsion against Zola's words.   
  
He had to get out.  Pay or no pay, cures or no cures, he would vanish tonight as soon as Zola left the lab — taking the "volunteer" along if he could.  
  
That was how Steve had arrived in the corridor, creeping along through the darkness, the Doctor's stolen keys in his pockets. If wasn't as though the keys were hard to come by.  He used them every day, unlocking cages and retrieving expired animals as part of "the work." But Zola left the keys in the drawer of his desk by night, behind the locked door of his office.  Zola had no reason to suspect the as-yet well-behaved young man.  He had no reason to suspect that Steve was well-versed in shimmying through transom windows.  Steve stole nothing but the keys and left the scientist’s office for what he hoped would be the last time.   
  
The monkey room was always the worst.  The monkeys were angry.  They threw their shit at the humans who came to hurt them.  Steve cleaned it up every day.  The room stank of their fury and fear, their piss and blood and the infections of their wounds.   
  
The monkeys screamed as he edged past their room.  There were currently just ten monkeys, and their numbers were not consecutive. Had there been three thousand victims prior to Monkey 3257? Steve didn’t know.    
  
There was one last room at the end of the hall. Steve had cleaned the room once, a routine cleaning. The room was not much bigger than a closet.  A cot long enough for a man to lie down wouldn't fit inside it.  There was no window, just a light, and a drain in the floor, and the bars.  At one time Zola had had chimpanzees, much bigger and stronger than the monkeys.  Apparently a chimp had raged out of control and bitten most of the face off one of Zola's former assistants, so Zola rarely used chimps anymore.  
  
Steve eased the door open, slipped inside and closed the door behind him.  He tried to let his eyes adjust but it was hopeless.  The room was pitch dark.   
  
"Psst," he whispered.   
  
There was no reply.  
  
"Hey," he said.  "This place is no good.   I’ll help you get out."  
  
Still no reply.  What if the man — the madman — was already incapacitated?   
  
Steve had kept to darkness, superstitiously hiding his activities from the light.  He had a flashlight in his pocket.  There was a lightbulb set in the ceiling overhead.  Flipping the switch seemed like tempting fate — no one else should be in the lab at night, to see the light shine under the door, but why risk it?  
  
Steve reluctantly pulled out his flashlight and switched it on.  
  
He stifled a scream as he jumped back against the far wall of the tiny room.  The madman was awake and alert, teeth bared, and glaring at him with eyes that glittered like a demon’s out of the darkness. 


	2. The Madman Speaks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The madman speaks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for the mistreatment of mental patients. sorry for the dark themes in this story! the caged aspect brought them out I guess. 
> 
> Suicide is mentioned, but only rumored as hearsay.

Steve pressed himself against the wall, as far from the cage as he could get.  His heart was pounding and his breath came short. What if the madman lunged for him through the bars?    
  
Then Steve saw that the madman was wrapped in the buckled cloth of a straitjacket.  The formerly white cloth was filthy and the man’s cell stank of urine even though he hadn’t been there long.  Unlike Steve, the man was a little gaunt but looked strong and well-made, except for the cuts and bruising all over his face and throat.  As Steve looked him over, the man growled with menace, low in his chest like a dog.  His eyes burned with fury, and Steve didn’t blame him.     
  
Zola had another assistant, a big guy called Rumlow, who fed the animals and cleaned out their cages as he deemed necessary.  Clearly, the so-called “volunteer” had put up enough of a fight that Rumlow had left him overnight in the straitjacket, even though it guaranteed a nasty mess for someone to clean tomorrow.     
  
That someone would have been Steve, though how Rumlow thought Steve could wrangle an uncooperative man nearly twice his size, he didn’t know.    
  
In fact, Steve didn’t know what he was supposed to do now.  The man was clearly dangerous.  He was hostile.  Even bound as he was, there was no way Steve could possibly handle him.  He glared at Steve and growled louder as though he would happily tear Steve’s throat out with his teeth.    
  
“I came to get you out,” Steve blurted.    
  
“Why?” the man asked.    
  
Steve was almost shocked to hear a human voice emerge from the madman’s throat.  His burning blue eyes, his tangled dark hair, the filth all over him, the straitjacket and the stench— he cut a monstrous figure.  
  
“The scientist — Zola — the things he does — “ Steve began.  
  
“What’s in it for you?” the madman demanded before Steve finished.  
  
“I thought it was for the greater good,” Steve said, hanging his head.  He’d signed up with Zola in good faith, but every day had eroded his belief in what Zola was doing.    
  
“What do you want from me?” the madman interrupted again.  His fevered stare demanded the truth from Steve.  
  
“Nothing,” Steve gasped.  “I just — I couldn’t leave a man in Zola’s hands.”  
  
“Why?” he asked again.  
  
“It’s not right,” Steve said, straightening up a little.  He’d been able to justify the suffering of the lab animals by the few who’d shown some improvements from Zola’s injections.  But to do those tests on a human being broke Steve’s resolve. “They said you were a volunteer.  I knew that couldn’t be right.”  
  
More accurately, Zola had said that the man had been volunteered after multiple suicide attempts.  
  
“Are you a volunteer?” Steve asked.    
  
The man stared at Steve.  “I don’t know,” he said, his voice harsh.    
  
“Did you try to kill yourself?” Steve asked, tilting his head to one side.  It was a rude and bold thing to say, but somehow Steve had to know.  
  
“I don’t remember,” the man said.  “They did something to me.  I don’t remember anything.  Only the fire …” The man broke off, staring off into the distance.    
  
“The fire?” Steve prompted.  
  
“In my brain.  The fire. The ice. The fire!” The man screamed again, the agonized scream that Steve had heard the night before.    
  
“Shhh!” Steve said desperately.  “Someone will hear!”  
  
The scream broke off as the madman choked for breath, rocking inside his straitjacket.    
  
“They — they put you on ice?” Steve hazarded.  He had heard that ice baths were sometimes used for treating maniacs.    
  
The man nodded, panting for breath.  His hair fell in a tangled mess over his eyes.  
  
“What’s the fire?” he asked.  
  
“Machine — my head,” the man groaned through gritted teeth.  
  
Steve had never heard of it.  Maybe Zola didn’t work alone.  Maybe there were other scientists conducting experiments on human beings.  Steve brought the keys out of his pocket and showed them to the man.  
  
“These are the keys.  I want to let you out.  Just, please don’t kill me. Okay?”  
  
A strange bark came out of the prisoner, and as his lips twisted, Steve recognized it as a laugh.  
  
“I can’t promise that. I must be in this straitjacket for a reason.  I know I tried to kill the guy who locked me in here.”  
  
“But I’m letting you out, not putting you in,” Steve argued.  
  
The man barked again. “Look in my eyes.  Maybe you’ll see my soul.”  
  
Steve hadn’t been able to afford much time in art school, but he’d memorized a sculptor’s quotation about human expression: “The eye is the window of the soul, the mouth the door. The intellect, the will, are seen in the eye; the emotions, sensibilities, and affections, in the mouth.”  
  
“Come closer to the bars,” Steve said.    
  
The man struggled to his feet and came to lean on the bars.    
  
Steve brought up his flashlight, not so that it shone in the man’s eyes, but so it illuminated his face.  He looked into the glittering blue eyes as requested.  He could see the suffering there, the questions, the anger about what had been done to him.  The man was defeated and alone, and Steve, like an angel wandering through the darkness, had come across him in perdition.    
  
Everything about the prisoner was savage, wild and lost, but in his eyes, Steve saw the man’s humanity.    
  
“You look all right to me,” Steve said.  His gaze, unwittingly, fell to the man’s lips.  Maybe it was because of the quotation, regarding the emotions, sensibilities, and affections.  The man’s lips were bitten and bruised, chapped and rough, but to Steve they told a different story.  The man’s lips were ready to curl into a sardonic grin.  They were lush with life, full of the potential for passion. Steve was staring, staring at the mouth of a man whose freedom he held in his hands. He blushed and averted his gaze.  
  
“You like what you see,” the man breathed, barely a whisper.  
  
“Huh?” Steve said.    
  
The man licked his lips, letting his mouth fall slightly open.  With a sigh, he relaxed against the bars, his attitude turning louche and luxurious.  Even bruised and filthy, he was somehow radiant in the dim glow of Steve’s flashlight.    
  
Steve knew by the rush in his loins that he couldn’t deny the man’s words.  Sure, he’d confined his affections to the ladies, even though they’d rarely been returned.  But he never could rein in his wandering eye, his appreciation for the beauty of men, no less glorious and perfect than that of women.     
  
“They tried to ‘cure’ you?” Steve whispered with a shudder. In the new field of psychiatry, often what was deemed a disease was much less appalling than the barbaric experimental cures doctors came up with.  
  
The man lifted a shoulder against the bars.  “Doesn’t seem like it worked.”  
  
Sympathy overwhelmed Steve’s good judgement. Steve had never dared confess to another human being that he liked men as well as women.  If he had, he might have suffered the same fate as this man.    
  
“I’ll let you out if you say you won’t hurt me,” Steve promised.  
  
“Kiss me first,” the man said.  
  
“What?” Steve said, shocked.  
  
“Kiss me, and we’ll trust each other,” the madman said. His eyes gleamed, locked onto Steve from beneath lowered lashes. He tapped his foot, impatient.   
  
It was crazy, but somehow, Steve was drawn in by the madman’s logic.   A kiss was a bond, even stronger than a handshake. If they kissed, they were no longer victim and savior.  If they kissed, they were in it together.    
  
The piss-sharp smell of the cell had fallen away from Steve’s consciousness. The cold, iron bars no longer mattered.  All he could see were the loosely parted lips of the madman, the slightly crooked front tooth, the tempting tongue.  All Steve could think was how beautiful the man suddenly seemed, how noble to bear up so under the tragic trappings of ruin.  
  
Steve moved from the wall as though in a dream, took hold of the bars, and presented his untouched mouth for the madman’s kiss.       
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The practice of electroshock was developed in the late thirties. Homosexuality was beginning to be cast as an "illness" in the 30s and later, things like ECT and even more horrifically, lobotomy and castration were used as "cures." So the use of ECT on Bucky would have been a little early, but possible. ):
> 
> The sculptor Steve quotes is Hiram Powers (1805 - 1873).


	3. Kisses, Freedom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kisses, freedom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally the darkness lets up a little!  
> thanks very much for reading. I hope you will enjoy!

Steve Rogers had never been a prize.  Scrawny, sick, abstracted, and angry — these were his characteristics.  He drifted away from lessons in school, never making good grades because he missed too many days.  Even when he was there, he was really somewhere else.  He didn’t make friends, too outspoken about the way things should be, and even when he stood up for someone else, he got knocked down, and no one wanted to side with a loser.    
  
Steve had the usual crushes on girls, but his burning looks never drew a girl’s favor.    
  
Steve had dark, secret crushes on boys, careful not to give himself away by the slyest of glances.    
  
Things might have been easier in art school, but by that time, Steve was already set in his ways.  His downward looks and heavy frowns were ingrained.  His drawings spoke for him if anyone cared to see — but most didn’t, absorbed by their own trajectory onwards and upwards. Then his Ma got sick and Steve dropped out and that was it.  
  
Now, here he was, in the middle of the night, in a stinking hell hole, waiting for kiss from a madman.    
  
He closed his eyes and held his breath.  His thoughts were a whirl of trepidation and longing.  It was the longing that took him by surprise.  In the darkness, lit only by Steve’s flashlight, the prisoner’s face took on a chiaroscuro sublimity.  The subtle curves of his features — his generous lips, strong chin, expressive eyes, high cheekbones, and the clear, open forehead above his brow — fascinated the artist in Steve and did not fade from before his mind’s eye.    
  
Steve stood still still against the bars, trying to hold steady, shaking with nerves.  Then, at last, he felt a tentative kiss brushing against him like the wings of a butterfly — lips exploring his cheek, tip of the nose tracing the contours of his face.  The warmth of another man’s breath moved across his skin, inciting a shiver deep from within Steve’s body. Steve’s stressed out, shallow breathing deepened.  How had the prisoner taken control, transforming the atmosphere of pain and death into one of possibility?  
  
His gentle, searching kisses awakened something in Steve, something he remembered from long ago, that had slowly dwindled and faded inside him.  He remembered going to church with his mother, standing in the cathedral as sunlight lit up the windows, the organ playing high and quiet, and choir boys trilling like birds.  He remembered how his soul had lifted, like it was meant to take wings and fly.    
  
As the madman kissed him in the darkness, edging closer to his lips, the feathery kisses grew less tentative.  His questing lips wooed Steve, polite but hungry, and Steve felt the urge rising inside him to give the man something that might satisfy them both.  
  
Slowly, with great daring, he turned his face to meet the tender kisses, answering with his own. As his lips touched those of the captive, shocks of delight raced along his nerves.  He wanted more and more of the gorgeous, heady feeling: he was wanted.  This was beautiful.  This was meant to be.    
  
“Mmmm,” the other man moaned. “Lovely.”  
  
Steve’s eyes floated open, and he met the dreamy stare of the man he had kissed.    
  
“I’ve got to get you out of there,” Steve said, with a shuddering sigh.    
  
“Best idea I’ve heard in a while,” the man said.    
  
Steve tried the keys.  The heaviest one unlocked the cage door.    
  
“Please, get me out of this thing,” the man moaned, straining against the straitjacket, a wild look building in his eyes.    
  
“Yes, of course,” Steve hurried to say, as his nimble fingers attacked the buckles. He soon had the jacket’s long sleeves flapping free. The prisoner flung his arms wide and threw his head back, exultant, his mouth wide open in a silent roar of triumph.    
  
Steve looked on, nervously.  The man’s spirit was huge, even abused as he had been.  How unpredictable might he be? What might he do with Steve on a whim?  
  
The man caught on to Steve’s careful, blank expression.  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I wouldn’t hurt you.”  
  
“Would you hurt — anyone?” Steve found himself asking.  
  
“I don’t know,” the man said, looking at his hands.  “I know I wanted to kill Rumlow. It felt like I would have if I could have.”  
  
“Hm,” Steve said.  
  
“Maybe I’m homicidal,” the man said, wide-eyed, with a devilish grin.  
  
“Maybe Rumlow had it coming,” Steve said, dislike for Rumlow, Zola and the whole nasty place bubbling up inside him.    
  
Suddenly the man’s strong hands had a grip on Steve’s upper arms.    
  
“Hey!” Steve cried, alarmed.    
  
“Sh,” the man said, “just, before, the bars—“  
  
“Oh,” Steve said, as the man leaned down and kissed him again.    
  
He gave out heat like a furnace. Pulled in close to his body, Steve almost felt burned.  His arms were so strong, like steel around Steve, but not to hurt.  He held Steve where he wanted him — but strangely, Steve didn’t feel like a plaything. He felt treasured, like the man was feasting on him, devouring him after a famine.  His mouth was so soft yet so insistent, his tongue exploring Steve’s mouth and laying claims.  He pulled back a little, kissed along Steve’s jaw, smelled behind his ears, and pulled Steve flush against him.    
  
Steve was hard, there was no denying. But so was the man.  They were in it together all right.    
  
“I want you,” the man growled in his ear.  “But I’m so filthy.  I need to wash up.”  
  
Reluctantly, Steve pulled back, and led the way to the washroom.  The monkeys screamed as they went past their room, but Steve felt so different now than he had. He was taking action.  He would soon be gone, and the prisoner with him.     
  
The man stripped away his filthy pants and the hateful straitjacket, and washed up with a soapy rag.  His body, under the grime, was pale, but fit and strong, and Steve couldn’t help but stare. He’d seen naked men at the Y and at school — but no one who wanted him.    
  
The man stared down at him, unashamed by his lack of clothing.  His hand lifted gently to stroke against Steve’s jaw.  “It seems like I know you.  You sure I don’t know you?”  
  
Steve looked back, steadfast.  “No way I could ever forget someone like you.”  
  
“Punk,” the man muttered.  “What a line.”  
  
“Jerk!” Steve returned, but they were already moving together.    
  
Steve had always hated being small and not very strong, but somehow, being wrapped up tight in the other man’s arms felt better than anything he could remember.    
  
“You never been held like this, have you?” the man muttered in his ear.    
  
“No,” Steve moaned.  
  
“You like it,” the other man stated, confident.    
  
“Yes,” Steve admitted. He squirmed a little and the bigger man just held him tighter.    
  
“Feels good, doesn’t it? Being held tight in another man’s arms? Knowing I’m strong enough to put you where I want you, do whatever I want with you?”  
  
“Yes,” Steve groaned.  He didn’t understand.  He should have hated it.  But instead he was achingly hard, desperate for more of the man’s soft kisses, eager to do whatever was asked of him.  
  
“I can touch you however I want,” the man said between kisses.    
  
Steve could still see the bruises and cuts Rumlow had left on him.  The man had known suffering, but somehow Steve knew he wasn’t planning to dole out pain.    
  
“Yeah,” Steve whispered, face hot with abandon, “touch me however you want,”  
  
The man leaned him up against the washroom wall.  He caught a glimpse of himself in the little mirror — eyes blown black, face flushed, hair tousled, lips bitten red.  He was a wanton mess. He’d never looked better.  
  
“Like this,” the man said, catching Steve’s wrists in his left hand, lifting them up above his head and pressing them against the wall. It put Steve on display, made Steve blush even harder, and intoxicated him with his own surrender.  
  
“Oh,” the other murmured.  “You precious thing…  God, I want —“ and he lowered his mouth to Steve’s skin, kissing him everywhere, pulling open the buttons of Steve’s shirt.  Steve groaned with shock and sheer overwhelmed pleasure as the man bit and licked at his nipples.  He’d never imagined such a thing, and here it was happening to him in Zola’s washroom.    
  
“Please,” Steve finally begged. His prick was throbbing in his pants, delicious torment.  “Please,” he said again, not knowing what to ask for.  
  
“Oh, doll, yeah, I got you,” the man said.  He was hard too, up against Steve — pressing against him through Steve’s clothes.  The man reached down and opened Steve’s pants, took him in hand. Steve would have fallen if he hadn’t been wedged there, and the man stroked their pricks together, all that velvet heat in one place, and Steve came harder than he’d known was possible.  With a low groan the man joined him, spilling against Steve’s belly, urging every drop out of the both of them, until he finally collapsed against Steve, against the wall.    
  
“Jesus,” Steve swore, trying to breathe.  His arms were still held tight in the man’s fierce hold.  
  
The man leaned, panting, against him, but finally pulled back, and stood him on his feet, then threw an arm around Steve’s shoulders as they stood away from the wall, relying on each other to get their feet under them.    
  
“Where will we go?”  he asked.  
  
“I don’t know,” Steve said.  “Wherever you want. West? To the end of the line.”  
  
“I don’t even know my own name,” the man laughed.  
  
“So?” Steve retorted.  “Maybe there’s a file in Zola’s office.”  
  
There was.  “James Buchanan Barnes, orphan, born March 10, 1917, Shelbyville, Indiana,” Steve read.  
  
“Bucky,” the man muttered, pointing at his middle name, frowning as though it were vaguely familiar.  
  
“Bucky,” Steve said.  “Better than nothing.”  
  
“Punk,” he said again, that wry smile lighting up his face.  
  
Bucky stole Rumlow’s spare clothes, and Steve gathered up his few things, and the two men set out together, disappearing without a trace into darkness and distance.    
   
  
  
   



	4. Love Nest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky find a place to flop for the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is back by popular demand. :) I hope you enjoy it! This is a nice, fluffy chapter for y'all.

…  
  
“There’s a shelter I know…” Steve began, but Bucky seized him and pulled him close. Instinctively, Steve tried to struggle, but stopped as he felt Bucky’s gentling hands.    
  
“We can’t,” Bucky said into Steve’s good ear.  He’d already noticed that Steve could hear better on the left.  “No shelters.  They’ll see, they’ll try to split us up. No.”  
  
“At least we can go in for food and maybe something for you to wear,” Steve said.  
  
“Maybe,” Bucky sighed. Bucky’s eyes were all around, searching every window and doorway and alleyway and shadow, every car that passed on the streets they were moving down so late at night.  
  
Steve felt his blood almost roaring in his veins.  He hadn’t felt so alive … maybe ever!  Bucky ran hot, his nerves strung tight, but he kept a soft hand near Steve.  Steve didn’t really understand it, but Bucky had latched onto him at first kiss.  His idea that kissing would tie them together seemed to be an immutable law on his end.  And Steve had to admit, he’d never expected to be led so eagerly into the unknown by a certified madman.    
  
There was something wild about Bucky.  He reminded Steve of books he’d read as a kid — when some noble savage steps out of the jungle to prove his innate superiority over the common man.  Bucky stood tall, moved with a lean grace, and stared at Steve like the two of them were predator and prey, and neither was sure which was which.    
  
Bucky suddenly pulled Steve into an alley and jiggled a door handle.  Miraculously, the door opened and they darted inside.  
  
“How did you…” Steve said, but Bucky was leading them deeper into the shadows.  Some sort of business, boarded up — a tailor from the looks of it, a few stray garments still hanging beneath a layer of dust.  Alterations the original owners couldn’t make good?    
  
Bucky sorted swiftly through the garments, sorting some to the end, taking some off the hangers into his arms.    
  
Steve watched, mouth slightly open, as Bucky assessed the room and led Steve to the back.  There was a tiny office, and there was a bare cot.  Buck threw down the clothes in his arms, mostly ladies' dresses, and arranged them this way and that until he’d made a soft nest on the cot.  
  
Laying one finger to his lips, he urged Steve to sit, then took Steve’s flashlight and darted from the office.  Steve lay in the old, dusty, silent room, listening for Bucky’s footsteps and hearing nothing.  The man moved as silent as a ghost.  
  
Soon he was back.  “Water,” he said with a smile. He led Steve to a decrepit, rust-stained sink, but water was running clear from the tap.    
  
“Thanks, Buck,” Steve said gratefully.   Adventures sure made a guy thirsty. He washed his hands and face and drank until his stomach was full.  They’d hit a bread line in the morning, he hoped.    
  
“You’re welcome, Stevie,” Bucky said with a happy little smile, then he washed up quickly and drank his own fill.    
  
“You sure do know how to show a guy a good time,” Steve joked.  
  
Bucky’s bright eyes closed off a little and he went back to scanning the darkened building.  
  
Steve didn’t know quite what he’d said. “Didn’t mean nothing,” he said in conciliatory tone.  
  
Bucky nodded and they went back to the nest Bucky had made.  
  
Steve stood staring at the narrow cot.     
  
“You oughta take it,” Steve urged.  “You gotta be tired after being tied up for so long.”  
  
“It’s for both of us,” Bucky said, softly, “if ya don’t mind.”  
  
“Both?” Steve said doubtfully. He knew he was small — but two grown men on such a narrow cot?  
  
Bucky lay down on his side and held out his arms. Steve lay down next to Bucky on the soft bed of dresses and found that Bucky had left him rather more than half the cot.  Bucky wallowed him around until his head was pillowed softly on Bucky’s arm, and his back was snug against Bucky’s front, and Bucky’s other arm was around his middle.  
  
It wasn’t the least bit uncomfortable.  In fact, Steve had never been so warm or felt so loved.  It was heaven.    
  
“Thank you,” he said. Relaxing, he breathed out, a full, deep breath.  He’d been so alone for so long.    
  
Bucky’s soft lips touched the back of his neck, and Steve shivered down to his core.  His life had taken a dramatic turn, all the way off the rails.  Yesterday he’d been a laboratory assistant with a promising career in scientific illustration, and today he was unemployed, transient, and the lover of a madman, not a penny to his name.  
  
Bucky’s upper hand moved soothingly here and there across Steve’s body, stroking as though Steve were some kind of restive animal.    
  
“Bucky,” Steve said.  
  
“Yeah?” Bucky answered, soft and dreamy.  
  
“I think you’re swell.  I just wanted to say.”  Steve felt himself blush at his sentimental words but he tried not to care.  
  
“You set me free,” Bucky murmured. “I belong to you now.”  
  
“What?” Steve said, waking up.  
  
“I’m yours.  Wherever you want to go, we’ll go — whatever you want, I’ll get — whatever you want from me, I’ll give.  I belong to you now.”  
  
Steve could hear the happiness and contentment in Bucky’s quiet words, but still, they disturbed him a little.  
  
“Bucky, no one owns you.  You’re a free man.”  
  
Bucky didn’t answer, tracing light designs around Steve’s torso.    
  
“You don’t have to do what I say — or what anyone says,” Steve argued.  
  
“Everyone does what someone says,” Bucky said.  “Them’s the rules.”  
  
Steve frowned, but he didn’t want to bother Bucky now when time was better spent sleeping.  
  
He tried to calm his swirling brain and he soon fell into a sleep like the dead.    
  
“What time is it?” he asked Bucky when he opened his eyes.  
  
A shrug was the only answer.  Bucky was in the half-broken office chair, reading a beat-up copy of _Frankenstein_ he'd pulled out of nowhere.  
  
“This seems so familiar,” Bucky mumbled.  
  
“Maybe you’ve read it before,” Steve answered, stretching.  
  
Bucky’s eye caught on the strip of skin between Steve’s trousers and his undershirt.    
  
Steve stretched a little more, looking back at Bucky.    
  
Bucky lay the open book face down on the desk and came to Steve, gingerly spreading himself out on top of the smaller man. Steve looked up at him, the mysterious man so gorgeous in the dim, shadowed light of the abandoned office.  Bucky’s clear irises caught the light and fascinated Steve; his moist red lips were the very definition of temptation. Steve lifted his head and kissed Bucky with everything he had, caressing the soft red mouth with his own, licking inside with the tip of his tongue, teasing Bucky into taking more.  
  
“I don’t own you,” Steve reminded Bucky.  
  
“I want to be yours,” Bucky said.  
  
“I want to be yours, too,” Steve countered.  
  
“Oh!” Bucky said, stopping a moment, head tilted to one side.  “I never knew it could go both ways.”  
  
“It has to go both ways,” Steve insisted with a frown, “or it doesn’t mean a thing.”  
  
“I think it always means a thing,” Bucky said. “But sometimes a better thing than other times.”  
  
Steve couldn’t argue, and that was maybe a first.  
  
Bucky held him down the way they both liked so much.  Bucky’s strong hands seemed massive on Steve’s thin body, but Bucky used them tenderly, questing after Steve’s greatest pleasure. Bucky kissed and kissed and stroked and stroked, until Steve was dizzy with wanting.  
  
“Bucky, Bucky,” Steve moaned.  
  
“Still feelin so egalitarian?” Bucky asked with a smile as the fancy word rolled off his tongue.  “Dontcha wanna boss me around?”  
  
“I like — whatever you do —  I like it!” Steve swore.    
  
“Tell me to suck you off,” Bucky whispered.  One hand danced lightly along Steve’s prick, where it was still trapped inside his underwear.    
  
“You wanna do that?” Steve asked, a painful surge of arousal zipping through him at Bucky’s inflaming words and teasing touch.  
  
“So much, Stevie, lemme, will ya?” Bucky kissed him, licking and sucking at his mouth in a way that made Steve desperate to feel him on his prick.    
  
“Yeah,” Steve said, “please, do it.”  
  
“You don’t gotta beg,” Bucky said. He paused a moment, honestly concerned.  “I won’t make ya beg.”  
  
Bucky’s sultry voice — his lazy accent — the birth certificate may have read Indiana, but this was a man who’d spent a long while in Brooklyn.     
  
“Suck me,” Steve ordered, nicely he hoped, and in a trice Bucky had his pants open.    
  
“Lovely,” he said, just like he’d said upon their first kiss.    
  
“Hm,” Steve said, doubtful, but Bucky was already licking his lips, wetting them up for Steve’s prick.    
  
Bucky dragged his tongue and his lips up and down Steve’s prick, hot and wet.  
  
“Oh, that’s so good!” Steve groaned, trying not to arch too much as Bucky suckled.  Bucky bobbed his head smoothly up and down, lips wet and loose around Steve, undulating his tongue against Steve’s length as he moved.    
  
Bucky took Steve all the way in, swallowing around him, moaning a little, the buzzing vibration traveling delightfully through Steve’s flesh.  Then Bucky’s hands were between Steve’s legs, gently rolling his balls in their sack, creeping behind to press against his perineum.    
  
“Ah, ah!” Steve cried, trying not to be too loud.    
  
Bucky massaged Steve, there between his sack and his hole, and then he trailed one finger down Steve’s crease, brushing lightly across the tight little pucker.  
  
The sensation raced through Steve like lightning — the gentle, exploratory touch in a place that Steve had only given perfunctory care.  Something inside him wanted that touch — Bucky’s insistent pressure on that place behind his balls was waking up some kind of yearning inside him.    
  
Steve was full of dark secrets, but there in that dim, dusty office, Bucky threw open the windows and let in the light.  
  
Stroking Steve with gentle fingers that promised more and more, sucking Steve in his soft, hot mouth, Bucky set Steve free just as surely as Steve had let loose the buckles of a straitjacket.  
  
Bucky's nuzzling lips, his suckling pulls, and his wonder-working hand took Steve over, his orgasm pouring out of him, down Bucky’s throat.    
  
Bucky swallowed happily and came into his own hand, licking it clean while Steve got his breathing back under control.  
  
“Oh,” Steve moaned.  “Oh, oh.”  
  
There was a secret universe of stars, whirling about the earth, that only lovers could ever see — stars of gold and stars of ice blue, fire red and solar yellow, shining out of the velvety darkness with a silent, staticky light.  Steve could still see their traces on the backs of his retinas.  
  
“Each other,” Steve gasped.  “We belong to each other.”  
  
“Okay,” Bucky agreed, idly running  his hands over Steve until he was ready to sit up and go out to scrounge for supper.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   



	5. Fistfighting, Lovemaking

Bucky had made a dim dusty office into a literal love nest.  Steve reluctantly sat up from the soft pile of ladies’ dresses and straightened his clothes.    
  
Bucky went to the main work room and came back with the things he’d pushed to the end of the rack — men’s clothes that might conceivably fit either him or Steve.    
  
They each found a shirt that would fit, and Bucky found a pair of pants and, even with amazing luck, a beautiful dark blue wool pea coat that had had its lining ripped out at some point. It fit Bucky’s broad shoulders perfectly.  He turned in front of Steve, a slight curl to his lips that let Steve know he knew exactly how good he looked.    
  
“It’ll do,” Steve said with a critical frown, and as expected, Bucky puffed up, ready to object but not sure how.    
  
“No,” Steve smiled, “no, Bucky, I’m just teasing.  You know that coat is perfect for you.”  
  
“Thanks, Stevie,” Bucky said, lowering his lashes over his happy blue eyes.    
  
The early fall days were still warm, but nights would soon be cold.  Steve examined the remaining cold weather garments with a critical eye.  One black wool coat with a ratty fur collar fit him fairly well, but was clearly a lady’s cut. One heavy flannel shirt, missing its buttons, would do in a pinch.  Then there was a heavy leather jacket with a bad tear in the shoulder.    
  
Bucky made him pull it out.  It was too big, and the shoulder gapped badly.    
  
“This one,” Bucky said decisively.    
  
“But—“  
  
“I’ll fix it up for you, no problem,” Bucky reassured him, Brooklyn accent strong.    
  
Steve was so charmed by Bucky’s confident attitude that he relented.  Bucky had somehow found this place — a safe place to sleep, with clean water and a working toilet, and clothes no less.  
  
Now they just needed food.    
  
Stepping out into the afternoon sunlight, Steve felt as exposed as a shop window display.   He cringed down into his new jacket, keeping his head low and striding as fast as he could without setting off his asthma.    
  
“Why the dark clouds,” Bucky asked, seeing his frown.  
  
“I feel like everyone is looking at me,” Steve hissed.  
  
“Why?” Bucky asked.  
  
“Like they know,” Steve said.    
  
“Know what?” Bucky pressed.  
  
“About us,” Steve whispered, looking all around.    
  
Bucky gave a satisfied smile.  “Us,” he nodded.  “Yeah.”  
  
“Ain’t you scared?” Steve said.  
  
“Scared of what?” Bucky said, turning a challenging blue eye on Steve.  His gaze was suddenly serious.  “Scared they’d lock me up — put me in chains — try to fry it outta me?”  
  
Steve felt a horrible chill rattle his bones.  “I will never let that happen to you again,” he swore.  Where had this allegiance come from, to a man he’d met a little less than one day earlier? It was so sudden, so implausible, but so strong, and Steve knew why. Inside Bucky was something beautiful, some inner light, some fire of virtue, a vigilant spirit — it called to Steve, and there was no possibility that Steve might deny or refuse what he felt for a man who should’ve been a stranger.    
  
If Steve had been of a more mystical bent, he might have said they were brothers in another life, or more — he could feel a bond forming, some kind of tie that was stronger than anything he’d felt for anyone before in this life, except the mother he’d lost so many years ago.  Steve didn’t really believe in fate — his mother had warned him against superstition — but sometimes something so good came along, he simply had to give thanks and accept it.  Bucky was here, they had found one another — Steve accepted it.  
  
They arrived at the soup kitchen in time for the first shift evening meal.  Steve and Bucky joined the line: a big bowl of hearty potato chowder for everyone, two rolls (the line was short that day), margarine, hot coffee — it was the most delicious soup Steve thought he’d ever eaten.  Zola had not been a generous employer, and the board he offered Steve was meager.  The soup kitchen was by far the better option.    
  
Steve and Bucky bowed their heads for the simple grace before the sermon. Whatever the preacher was saying, Steve tuned it out.  Steve no longer looked to a higher power for judgment or for salvation.  He prayed as always for the quiet repose of his mother’s soul — and was surprised to find that he wanted to pray as well for his new comrade.  Keep him out of harm’s way, Steve petitioned with his whole heart.    
  
Bucky greased up one roll and stuck it in his pocket, and Steve followed suit.  They stood together, and Steve once more observed their easy camaraderie.  He smiled at Bucky, just a small, friendly smile, and he felt warm inside when he saw Bucky’s eyes light up.  
  
They turned to head back toward their flop, when a big hand fell on Steve’s shoulder, spinning him around.    
  
“Hey, Rogers,” came a belligerent voice.    
  
It was Rumlow.    
  
Steve didn’t even have time to speak before Bucky erupted into violence.  Catching Rumlow’s heavy hand in his own and throwing it off of Steve’s shoulder, Bucky socked the big man in the jaw with tremendous force.  Rumlow’s head spun around and time slowed down — every detail searing itself into Steve’s brain: the chill in the fall air, the slant of sunset light, the hatred in Rumlow’s eyes as he tried to shake off Bucky’s shot and grab Steve again.  Steve turned just slightly to the side and kicked at Rumlow’s knee with his heel, calling on every bit of strength he had in him in desperation.    
  
Something snapped and Rumlow howled in pain, going down.  
  
Bucky dropped to his knees and pounded Rumlow in the head with a devastating flurry of punches.  
  
“Stop!” Steve shouted, pulling Bucky off.  
  
Bucky swung around, wild-eyed.  Steve shook him slightly by the shoulders.  Rumlow was bleeding from a broken nose and a cut on his cheekbone; he was out cold, but still breathing.  
  
“Don’t — he’s down, he’s out,” Steve said.  
  
Awareness slowly trickled back into Bucky’s eyes.    
  
“Shit, we gotta get outta here,” he said.  Bucky heaved himself to his feet, shook himself like a dog, grabbed Steve by the arm and ran. Steve strained his ears for the policeman’s whistle but heard nothing and then two blocks were behind them.  Bucky slowed them down to a walk and turned a corner.     
  
“He was looking for us,” Bucky said.  
  
Steve knew with a horrible feeling in his gut that Bucky was right.  
  
“We gotta get outta town,” Bucky continued.  
  
“Yeah,” Steve said, not knowing what to think.  He had nothing left here, no refuge, no one, but at least New York was where he’d been born, where he’d lived his whole life.  He knew New York, the people, and he understood the way New Yorkers did things. But Rumlow’s attack shook Steve.  The man hadn’t been a friend, but Steve knew enough to recognize an enemy.    
  
Bucky led Steve back to the tailor’s, making sure they weren’t followed.  Steve heaved a sigh of relief and nearly collapsed on the cot that already felt like home, a temporary home made all the more sweet by the knowledge that it was already given up.  
  
“Rest a little; we’ll leave later tonight,” Bucky said.  “Let’s get washed up.”  
  
“Okay,” Steve said.  They were dusty and sweaty from running; Steve was so grateful the place had running water. It was hard to think about going on the run with no destination and not one dime in their pockets, but the confrontation with Rumlow had made it clear that Zola was looking for them.    
  
“Stevie,” Bucky said, frowning, sitting down beside Steve on the cot.    
  
“Yeah?” Steve answered.  
  
“I feel like I’m turning your life upside down.”  
  
“What life?” Steve asked.  
  
Bucky just shrugged. “I don’t know.  I just.  You’re not safe, now, and that’s cause of me.”  
  
Steve squared his shoulders.  “I never shoulda signed on with Zola in the first place. What he’s doing, I could tell it’s not right, you know? But then, you showed up, and I knew I had to get you out of there.  You did me a favor, Buck.”  
  
“I’ll do you another one, if you want,” Bucky said, leaning closer.  
  
Steve felt himself harden at Bucky’s murmured words and soft eyes.  
  
“You’re the best, Steve,” Bucky muttered in Steve’s ear.  “I can’t keep my hands off you.”  
  
“I ain’t complaining,” Steve answered, as Bucky lay him back, kissing him intently, pulling their bodies close.    
  
“You fit against me so perfect,” Bucky said.  “Feels so good.”    
  
“Mmm,” Steve agree, kissing Bucky with every bit of concentration he could muster.    
  
“Gotta get these clothes offa you — wanna see ya, Stevie,” Bucky muttered.  “God only knows when we’ll next have a roof over our heads.”  
  
Steve couldn’t answer. His head was swimming with Bucky’s passionate kisses. Bucky pulled off all his clothes, undoing him button by button, kissing every inch of pale, freckled skin as it was revealed.    
  
Steve wasn’t proud of his body.  He’d been sick all the time as a kid and just couldn’t seem to grow tall.  His spine had a curvature almost impossible to see, but enough that it hurt him too much to lift weights or do too many calisthenics.  He was pale and skinny and asthmatic and on top of it all, he was tetchy and had a hot temper.    
  
Bucky on the other hand was perfect, like Michelangelo’s David, which Steve knew by heart from the hours he’d spent copying it out of art books: the long legs, muscular torso, strong arms and broad shoulders of the shepherd king were just like Bucky, while Steve found Bucky’s features superior even to the statue's classically handsome face.     
  
“Whaddaya looking at, Stevie,” Bucky slurred, between kisses, as he caught Steve staring.  
  
“You,” Steve said.  “I like looking at you.  You’re easy on the eyes.” He tried to smile a little, unpracticed at giving compliments.  
  
Bucky blinked and blushed, hiding his hot face in Steve’s neck.    
  
“Naw,” he said.  
  
“Bucky, you’re gorgeous,” Steve whispered.  
  
“But you,” Bucky said, tracing the line of Steve’s jaw.  “You’re so perfect — “  
  
“Me?” Steve said incredulously.    
  
“I feel like I’ve known you forever,” Bucky whispered, “like I knew your face in a dream — like, you were made to fit me, my arm across your shoulders, your back to my chest, your ass to my —“  
  
Bucky gave a little demonstration, nestling his interested prick comfortably between Steve’s ass cheeks.    
  
“Must be fate,” Steve said, faintly.    
  
They lay there a moment, breathing together, Bucky’s hand moving with restless soothing motions all around Steve’s body.    
  
“Bucky,” Steve said.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“If you, uh, wanna…” Steve cleared his throat. “If you wanted to fuck me, I wouldn’t stop you.”  
  
Bucky’s arms tightened around Steve, and his prick jumped hard at Steve’s words.  “Oh Stevie,” Bucky moaned, “you have no idea much I want to — but we can’t right now.  I gotta make it good for you, and that takes preparation, and that takes time we don’t have.”  
  
“Oh,” Steve said, his heart pounding a little.  
  
“But,” Bucky added, “we can do — some things — that’ll make it better later.”  
  
“Yeah?” Steve said.  
  
“Yeah,” Bucky said.  His voice was low and dark like coffee, sweet and sinful, promising things Bucky knew how to deliver.    
  
Bucky’s left hand drifted up to Steve’s mouth, brushing Steve’s lips with a ticklish touch, until his mouth dropped open.  Bucky’s fingers went in little, and Steve nipped, then licked, and as they pressed further in, he began to suck.  
  
“Yeah,” Bucky said.  “That’s it.  Get em good and wet.”    
  
Steve slurped and felt himself getting harder and harder.     
  
“Mmm,” Steve moaned around Bucky’s fingers.    
  
“Good, Stevie,” Bucky mumbled, pulling his wet fingers free.  His left hand dropped to Steve’s prick and began to pump, lazy and slow.    
  
“Oh, Stevie, god, you’re so hard in my hand,” Bucky murmured into Steve’s ear.    
  
Steve tried to thrust against Bucky’s devilish grip, but Bucky relentlessly set the pace, working Steve up to a fever pitch and then drawing back.  Slick was dripping out of Steve onto Bucky’s hand, and the slicker it got, the better it felt and the wetter Steve made it.    
  
“There we go,” Bucky praised,  “that’s it, doll, nice and wet for me, yeah.”  
  
Bucky’s words were gentle but they made Steve’s face hot as fire.    
  
Then Bucky’s hand slipped off Steve’s prick and around and across Steve’s asshole.    
  
“Ah!” Steve cried, clenching forward.  Such a mild touch had never felt so intense.    
  
“Easy, Stevie — relax, this is gonna feel amazing.”  
  
“Oh, oh, okay,” Steve stuttered, trying to relax.    
  
Bucky tipped him a little farther forward, so that he was twisted across one leg. Bucky stroked his asshole with a smooth, wet finger, and gently pressed it there.    
  
“Press back,” Bucky said after a while, so Steve did and felt Bucky’s fingertip slip inside him.  
  
“Oooh, oh god,” Steve moaned.    
  
The feeling was almost overwhelming — a little bit painful, too tight, but at the same time, Steve wanted to relax, he wanted to let the finger in.  It made him feel more wanton and sexual than he’d ever felt in his life.  More of that finger, he wanted it — pressing back, he let a little more in.  
  
“Oh! Oh, Bucky, it feels — “  
  
“I know, Stevie, just let it happen,” Bucky crooned.  “You’re doing so good, I promise.  Just press back.  Take it.  That’s it.”  
  
Slowly Bucky’s finger sank into Steve, slow and steady, till it was all the way in.    
  
“Breathe,” Bucky murmured.  “Breathe for me.”  
  
Steve was panting, shallow breaths.  He tried to let his tension out, taking a deep breath and expelling it slowly.  As he breathed out, Bucky moved his finger, just a little, out and in, the slightest amount.    
  
“Okay,” Bucky said, and Steve felt Bucky’s finger move again, as though he were feeling for something.    
  
Possibly Bucky was looking for a live wire, because that’s what it seemed like he found inside Steve.    
  
“Oh, oh Bucky, do that again,” Steve gasped.    
  
“Here we go,” Bucky promised, and he began dragging his finger repeatedly over that spot.    
  
Steve knew if he said one more thing, it would just be “Bucky Bucky oh god, Bucky, so good, oh so good,” so he gritted his teeth together and keened and tried not to shake apart.    
  
Bucky, however, had no qualms about his running mouth.  “How’s that, Steve, hm? does that feel good? I got it, right there, huh? yeah, you like that, Stevie?”  — all the while stroking him gently, barely moving, one finger passing repeatedly across that magical spot, wringing Steve out with pleasure.    
  
“please please please please please” — Steve was begging, teeth still clenched, the need for release too urgent to bear.     
  
“Stevie — put your hand on yourself — that’s right — come for me, say my name!” Bucky urged.  
  
“Bucky!” Steve groaned, and came so hard he saw stars.  He wrung himself out, shooting more than he ever had, with Bucky pressing a spot inside him that let it all out.    
  
Bucky thrust between his cheeks, shook, and came all over his back, groaning his name.    
  
Steve felt thoroughly debauched.  His ass ached a little, nothing sharp, as Bucky gingerly pulled his finger out and they lay together panting for a moment.    
  
“I love you, Steve,” Bucky said.  
  
“You hardly know me,” Steve tried to laugh, but a flame in his own heart matched Bucky’s ardent declaration.    
  
“I know you, somehow,” Bucky insisted.    “I hate that it took me so long to find you, and I don’t even know who I am.”  
  
“I found you,” Steve pointed out. “And at least we know your name.”  
  
“One way or t’other,” Bucky said.  He got up and went to get their washrag, cleaned them up, then gently kissed Steve’s ass.  
  
“Bucky — what??” Steve said, a little shocked.  
  
“I love you, every part of you, Stevie,” Bucky said, simply.  “Now, you get some shuteye.  I gotta go out, take care of some things. I’ll be back before long.”  
  
“Out? No —“ Steve protested.    
  
“Yeah, it’ll be all right.  I’ll be back.”  
  
Without another word, Bucky was gone.  He moved so fast sometimes, Steve thought he was almost like a ghost.    
  
Bucky had said they would leave in the middle of the night, so Steve sighed, turned over, and promptly fell asleep.    
  
  



	6. The Plot Thickens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky takes care of some things.

If Bucky hadn’t wrung him out so thoroughly, Steve didn’t think he would have been able to sleep through the odd hours of the evening, despite all the nervewracking things that had happened to him in such a short span of time: rescuing a madman, running away, getting into a street fight, and planning to get out of town — not to mention falling under the spell of the madman’s ravenous kisses and shattering lovemaking.    
  
Steve felt a hand on his shoulder, and already he knew whose hand it was, trusted and familiar.  
  
“Bucky?” he mumbled, opening his eyes.  
  
Bucky brushed Steve’s hair back from his face — the top was getting a little long — and tenderly kissed his eyelids, one and then the other.    
  
“Time to go, sweetheart,” he whispered.    
  
“Okay,” Steve said with a sigh.  Once he was dressed, there wasn’t much else — his satchel with some pencils and sketchbooks, the torn leather jacket and some things to mend it with, his flashlight.    
  
Bucky had gone through the contents of the old desk at some point.  He’d found that copy of _Frankenstein_ , some maps, a pocket notebook, pencils, a gum eraser and a penknife.   He presented the stationery goods to Steve ceremonially, and Steve smiled as he graciously accepted them.   
  
“A kiss for luck —“ Steve said as they prepared to leave the building.  He pulled Bucky in, offering his mouth, and Bucky kissed him thoroughly — tasting of cigarettes and whisky.    
  
“Bucky — where did you go?” Steve asked, pulling back just a little.  
  
“Took care of some things, like I said,” Bucky said, evasively, and Steve knew he was hiding something, as his bright eyes shifted away from Steve’s gaze.  
  
“You went to a bar,” Steve said, trying to keep any hint of accusation out of his voice.  
  
“Picked up some cash,” Bucky muttered.    
  
Steve’s heart thudded. “Cash, how?” he asked, simply.  
  
“Handjobs a dollar, suckjobs three.  That’s the sailors’ going rate, so they tell me,” Bucky said.    
  
Steve’s fingers drifted up to Bucky’s mouth, shock leaving him cold.  “Are you all right?” Steve gasped.  
  
“Sure.  I ran into a friend — a guy who knew me.  He’s meeting us later.”  
  
“How much did you make at the bar?” Steve asked, trying to seem nonchalant.  
  
“Fifty bucks,” Bucky smiled.  “I took it three times in the alley, so my wallet filled up pretty quick.”  
  
Steve was a little bit horrified, but Bucky seemed okay.  He knew what Bucky meant about the alley; it was something he’d shaped his whole life around trying to avoid.    
  
“You swear you’re okay?” Steve said.  
  
“Course, I am, sugar,” Bucky said.  “Oh. Hey, you ain’t mad at me, are you? You said we belong to each other, so I thought, I wanted to get some cash so you wouldn’t have to worry so much.”  
  
Steve looked into Bucky’s handsome face and laid both hands on Bucky’s shoulders.  “I ain’t so worried about dough that I’d ever risk you getting hurt,” Steve avowed.    
  
“I can handle myself,” Bucky assured him.    
  
Steve looked as deep as he could into Bucky’s blue eyes.  “Okay,” Steve said.  “And, thank you.  But taking care of yourself is as important as taking care of me.”  
  
“If you say so,” Bucky said.  “I like your rules, Stevie,” he added with a smile. “Now come on, shake it, or my buddy’ll think we ain’t coming.”  
  
Steve shook a leg and they left the dusty nest of silks behind.  
  
The streets of the City were different at night.  Daytime crowds thinned down to scattered stragglers, hurrying, staggering, wandering, some cooing in pairs, some sighing alone.  Steve had always been a shuttered singleton, rushing alone, head down, to his destination.  Now, he was gathered into Bucky’s sweeping wake, connected to him even when his tall companion’s arm wasn’t draped across his shoulders.    
  
They strode down the street like they owned the place.  Overhead the skyscrapers glittered, millionaires drank and danced and laughed, and Steve felt like his life was just as amazing, for the first time now, as one of theirs could ever be.  
  
The blocks melted under Bucky’s long stride, and somehow, Steve kept up — a fast pace, but not too fast for his tetchy lungs.    
  
Then a red headed cop stepped out of the shadows, bouncing his stick in his hand and blocking the sidewalk with his bulk.  
  
“James Buchanan Barnes,” he intoned in a thick, Irish accent.  
  
Bucky reared back.  “Who wants to know?”  
  
“Sergeant Timothy Dugan,” the cop said.  “And who might this be?” he asked, indicating Steve.    
  
Steve squared his shoulders.  “Don’t tell him anything,” Steve said, staring at Dugan defiantly.  “This ain’t gonna be a shakedown.”  
  
“No sir, it ain’t,” Bucky said, and stepped forward to clasp Dugan by the arm.  “Dum Dum here is our ride across the river.”  
  
Steve’s mouth fell open. “You — know each other?” he said, looking from Dugan to Bucky. Both men were grinning widely at Steve’s astonishment.  
  
“Know’s a strong word,” Bucky said. “I ain’t all there, and that’s fact, but it’d be an icy day in hell before I forgot this ugly mug.”  
  
“Jesus, Barnes, what sort of mess did you get into?”  Dugan said.  
  
“I don’t rightly know,” Bucky said.  “But at least now we know I was on the right side of the law.”  
  
“You what?” Steve said.    
  
“Come on,” Dugan said.  “There’s no call for airing out these affairs on the street.” Steve and Bucky followed Dugan down the alley to a pickup truck and all three men got in the front.  
  
Dugan started it up and they talked as he drove.  
  
“Barnes here is one of New York’s Finest, highly decorated, and promoted to who knows where,” Dugan explained. “Remember the night we met?”  he asked Bucky.  
  
“No, I do not,” Bucky said with a sigh.  
  
“Vice raid,” Dugan said. “You were green as leprechaun shit, and you still pulled my ass outta the fire.”  
  
“Huh,” Steve said.  “Vice?”   How could Bucky work in vice — doing what he did? Being what he was?  
  
“Bucky here is what we call an undercover man,” Dugan said, tapping the side of his nose. “Connections, special operations, dontcha know.”  
  
“Yeah,” Steve said, and he kept his eyes straight forward, refusing to glance at Bucky’s lush red lips.  
  
 “You’re in good hands, if you’re running with Barnes,” Dugan said.  “But I want to know you’ll watch his back.”  
  
“I will,” Steve swore.  
  
“Tell me more,” Bucky said, “about what I can’t remember.”  
  
“Tall order!” Dugan said. “Born in Indiana, orphaned, came up in Brooklyn, rough background, graduated high school at 16, joined the academy, crack shot, decorated, well on the way to detective, disappeared into the underworld. Rumor had it you was in Cleveland last.”  
  
“Cleveland,” Bucky said, nodding. “Sounds familiar.”  
  
“Watch out for Ness,” Dugan advised.  “There’s bad blood after him.”  
  
“Bad blood?” Steve asked.  
  
Bucky’s eyes were dark. “Sometimes a good man goes down slow.”  
  
Dugan sighed and shook his head.  “The good Lord watch between me and thee,” he intoned.  
  
Dugan stopped the truck.  They were already in New Jersey.    
  
“Good luck, Barnes, you too, kid,” Dugan said, shaking Steve’s hand.  “I’ll make sure Becky hears you’re well.”  
  
“Becky?” Bucky said faintly.  
  
“Jesus Christ, what happened to you?” Dugan said, agog.  
  
“I don’t know,” Bucky said.  “Who’s Becky?”  
  
“Your sister!”  Dugan exclaimed. “Half your monthly paycheck is the only way she knows you’re still alive!”  
  
“Alive,” Bucky repeated.  “Sister,” he said, shaking his head.  
  
Steve clapped him bracingly on the shoulder.  “You ain’t alone if you got a sister, Bucky,” Steve said.  
  
“I ain’t alone,” Bucky said, looking meaningfully at Steve.    
  
Dugan saluted Bucky and left them at the little anonymous station, waiting for a westbound train.    
  
  



	7. Cleveland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky arrive in Cleveland.

The train jolted into motion, taking them away from Zola and Rumlow, and Steve let out a breath of relief.     
  
All his life he’d been in and out of the cavernous chamber of Grand Central Station.  The little office and platform where Dugan had dropped Steve and Bucky was the furthest from Grand Central that could be imagined — and yet it was just across the river.  If anyone were watching for Bucky and Steve to leave the City, that sleepy little platform would be the last place anyone would look.  And now the train was moving.    
  
Bucky had looked so pleased as he paid for their tickets.  He folded away the rest of his cash and stowed it inside his shirt pocket.  Clean and looking sharp in his blue peacoat, his appearance was a big change from the madman who’d so recently been restrained in Zola’s cage.  Still, though, there was a certain look in his eyes — a look of hyper alertness. Steve knew it wasn’t normal, and he felt a little ashamed that it made him feel safe.  
  
Dawn hadn’t touched the sky when the train arrived.  Businessmen with their briefcases were the bulk of the people boarding, some heading for Cleveland, some all the way to Chicago or points further west on first class sleeper car tickets.    
  
Bucky had bought them coach, but it was a decent streamlined train with a sandwich cart and a porter selling cups of hot coffee.  At least they weren’t like hobos, jumping onto empty cattle cars.  Steve owed Bucky for that, and it burned a little, compassionate sadness, righteous anger, tinged by a hint of jealousy, that Bucky had traded himself to buy Steve’s comfort.  Steve didn’t like it, but he knew Bucky was proud, so it was his job to be grateful and not be a little punk about it.  Still it rankled, somehow wounding Steve at the same time as he was touched by Bucky’s selflessness and generosity.  
  
Bucky had bustled Steve into a seat by a window, facing forward, and he’d seated himself on the aisle.  Neither of them had any luggage except Steve’s satchel, which Steve tucked against the window.    
  
“Cleveland?” Bucky had suggested before buying the ticket.  
  
Steve had merely shrugged.  It was a big country.  Getting out of New York, away from Zola and Rumlow and that whole mess, was Steve’s first priority, and there was nothing more or less against Cleveland than anywhere else.  
  
But sitting on the train, moving west as dawn slowly chased them, bringing the countryside to light, Steve realized that Cleveland did have something terrible against it.  Something had been done to Bucky in Cleveland that had transformed him from a decorated undercover police officer, to a wild-eyed amnesiac in a strait-jacket. If Steve stopped to think about it, Cleveland was the last place in the country they should be headed towards.  But — there was something inside Steve that couldn’t just run the other way.  Whoever had done whatever they’d done to Bucky — they were bad, and they needed to be stopped. They needed to be caught and made to pay for their crimes.  If Bucky was really a cop, if he’d been working for Eliot Ness like Dugan had implied, then Ness was the man they’d need to seek out.  And Steve would have to be the go-between if Bucky were to maintain his cover.  
  
Steve shuddered with the sudden realization: whoever was responsible for Bucky’s memory loss must have known Zola.  They had done something to Bucky and then given him to Zola as a mindless test subject — not a volunteer at all.  Whoever had done that to Bucky would be waiting for them in Cleveland, like a spider in a web.  They knew Bucky. Someone in Cleveland had buckled him into a straitjacket and shipped him to New York like a laboratory animal.  They probably knew that he was a cop.  They most likely knew much more about Bucky than Bucky himself did.  
  
Steve began to think they should have stayed in the City, talked more with Dugan.  But Dugan had told them all he knew.  There was no point asking him anything more.  And Steve knew in his heart, without bothering to ask, that Bucky would never make a move that endangered his sister, even a sister he didn’t even remember.  
  
Steve knew the train to Cleveland was taking them in a straight line, due west, to the place they needed to go, to get to the bottom of things, to find out what had happened to Bucky, and if possible, bring the men who’d done it to justice.    
  
Steve thought everything out as the day outside the window steadily brightened.  The autumn leaves had changed their colors, fiery red and yellow and orange—mown fields, cattle in pastures, little towns where the train came to a pause and then rattled on.      
  
Bucky had made the same call in an instant: Cleveland was the only possible destination, the end of the line.    
  
Admiration for Bucky welled up inside of Steve.  Left with almost nothing, only a threadbare knowledge of his name and an outline of his profession, Bucky had headed for danger when he could have run for cover.   Pared down to the core of who he was, Steve thought Bucky was the best man he had ever known: selfless, brave, a demon in a fight, and the tender lover Steve had scarcely dared to imagine.    
  
Steve let himself be lulled to sleep against the window, his companion like a bulwark against the aisle.  
   
Bucky shook Steve a little by the shoulder. He opened his eyes to find Bucky smiling happily, such a beautiful sight.  
  
“Hey, Stevie, the cart is coming through.  You oughta get something to eat.”  
  
“Thanks, Bucky,” Steve said, shaking himself awake.    
  
They each got a ham and cheese sandwich, an apple and a cup of coffee.  Bucky thanked the porter politely as he paid for their food and tipped for good service, and the old man nodded his appreciation.  
  
The coffee was delicious.  The sandwiches were cold, but thick with cheese and a sliver of ham.  The apples were fresh and crisp.  The details swam, exaggerated in Steve’s consciousness, heightened by the circumstances of the train ride — they would get into Cleveland just after dark.  Lunch and dinner on the train — towns and farms and trees and fields.  Steve had spent too long cooped up in Zola’s lab.  The world seemed unreal somehow, too bright outside the train window.  
  
“What will we do when we get there, Buck?” Steve asked.  
  
“Find a place to sleep, get the lay of the land,” Bucky said, shrugging.  
  
“I never been outta New York,” Steve said.  “Ma didn’t make enough to take us anywhere when I was little.  A big trip for me was a day at the museum, or sometimes Coney Island.”  
  
Bucky smiled, a sweet, open smile. “I can see you, looking all serious in front of the great masters,” Bucky teased.    
  
Steve nodded, grinning despite himself.  
  
“Tell me about your favorites,” Bucky said.  
  
“Well, there’s the Wheatfield with Cypresses,” Steve began.  “Van Gogh.  But he makes me a little nervous.  So much energy, so much light — but always, that darkness, roiling in every stroke.”  
  
Bucky listened intently, his blue eyes staring into Steve’s.    
  
“You know the painting I mean?” Steve asked, realizing that Bucky might not have any idea what he was talking about.  
  
“I don’t know.  You say, wheatfield with cypresses, and I can imagine that I’m seeing what you’re seeing.  I guess you’d have to draw it to know for sure.”  
  
“Hm,” Steve said.  He didn’t think there was any way to sketch a Van Gogh.    
  
“I really like Vermeer’s Woman with a Water Pitcher,” Steve said.  “She’s wearing a white bonnet and a wide, white collar.  It’s amazing, the way her blue dress and those pieces of white form a pattern in the painting.  There’s a window, and it lets in the light in a certain way.  A table.  A picture on the wall.” Steve was frustrated that he couldn’t seem to find words for the feeling of movement and peace that the painting invoked in him. “The woman is moving, but everything in the painting is so peaceful.”  
  
“I like that thought,” Bucky said.  “A woman in blue and white, standing near a window in a peaceful room.”  
  
Steve looked at his friend and tried to imagine what the painting looked like inside Bucky’s mind, a painting he only knew from Steve’s description.  
  
“The surfaces are so smooth, so luminous,” Steve murmured.  “The water jug looks like a sculpture, perfectly balanced near the middle of the painting.”  
  
“So the water jug is in the center?”  
  
“No,” Steve said.  He’d been born with a gift, that he could close his eyes and remember exactly what he’d seen, as though the painting were right in front of him. At the celebration of his birth, Steve sometimes thought, many angry fairies had laid their curses upon him, but one sweet fairy had given him the ability to hold images in his mind, exactly, forever. “The water jug is on the table, central, but towards the bottom right.  The exact center of the painting is the break in the woman’s collar.” Steve reached up to touch his sternum, showing on himself where the painting focused.  
  
Bucky’s hand rose up and he touched himself in the same place.  For a moment they both felt their own breathing.    
  
“That’s a good center for a peaceful room,” Bucky said.    
  
Steve nodded, glad his memory could convey to Bucky some semblance of peace.    
  
“Do you remember, did you ever go to the Met?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Bucky said.  “I can almost see the paintings while you’re describing them. But I guess I might have a good imagination.”  
  
“We’ll go there some day,” Steve promised.    
  
“Yeah,” Bucky smiled. “We’ll go with my sister.”  
  
The thought of Bucky’s sister did something to Steve.  He’d been so alone for so long. After his Ma died, he had no one.  Absolutely no one cared if Steve Rogers lived or died.  Bucky, though, had a sister, someone he loved enough that he gave her half his paycheck. Certainly Bucky’s sister loved her brother in return.  Steve could imagine Bucky taking care of a little sister, that proud and watchful look in his eye as he made certain everything was fine. Orphans, he’d taken care of her. Certainly she was thinking about him, praying for his safety.  Maybe Dugan was ringing her doorbell that very moment, to tell her he’d seen her brother.  Did she have big blue eyes and softly curling dark hair, as beautiful as Bucky with full red lips like his? Steve half loved her already, this sister he’d never met, that Bucky couldn’t even remember.  
  
They talked about paintings, Steve filling Bucky’s head with images he shared as best he could.  They talked about the book Bucky was reading.  He felt like he’d read it before. Bucky made the book sound very different from the movie Steve had seen with Boris Karloff as the monster.    
  
“He needs a friend,” Bucky says.  “Everyone’s so afraid of him, they attack and he lashes out. He’s so alone.”  
  
Steve knew firsthand how loneliness could drive someone to desperation.  Pressing his shoulder against Bucky’s he said, “I’m not alone, anymore…”  
  
“Yeah,” Bucky said, understanding what Steve meant.  
  
The sun moved overhead and began to sink in the west, where they were headed.  The shadows stretched out long, ominous.    
  
The porter came through again, offering hot chili con carne with a side of cheese and crackers. It helped to pass the time and having a full stomach helped his brain slow down from the constant racing thoughts about what they would find in Cleveland.    
  
It was dark by the time the conductor came through announcing that Cleveland would be the next stop.  Steve was exhausted, even though the day had been spent talking, eating, resting. Fourteen hours was a very long day on little real sleep.    
  
The city around them was dark and unknown.  The train pulled to a halt and they gathered themselves.  They stood on the platform, the cold wind off Lake Erie blowing them tighter into their coats.  
  
“Come on,” Bucky said, striding down the platform, but not so fast Steve couldn’t keep up.  
  
Bucky had come here before, undercover, to break up some kind of crime. Instead, his cover had been broken, his memories stolen. Whoever had done that was waiting in this dark city:  they knew Bucky’s face, but he didn’t know theirs.  
  
There was only one man in Cleveland they could trust: Eliot Ness, the man Dugan had said was surrounded by bad blood.    
  
Cold wind, dark city, bad blood, the words swam in Steve’s head till Bucky’s arm came down around his shoulders.  
  
“Try to keep up, okay, punk?” Bucky teased.  
  
The words lit a fire inside Steve, just as Bucky knew they would.  “Jerk,” he retorted.     
  
The man behind the counter at the train station gave them directions to a rooming house they could afford.  It was a half hour walk, and Steve kept up.  No one batted an eye when they got a single room; lots of guys bunked together in these hard times.      
  
 Steve hung his satchel on a hook and shrugged off his jacket.  The room didn’t have its own plumbing, just an old fashioned washstand, but Steve was eager to go down the hall to fill the pitcher with hot water and clean off the grime of travel.  
  
“I’m gonna go out,” Bucky said, evading Steve’s eyes.    
  
“Don’t,” Steve said, emotion tight in his voice.  
  
“Huh?” Bucky asked, looking down at the floor. “We’re gonna need the money.”  
  
Steve took a breath. “It’s not safe out there for you till we contact Ness.  Besides, maybe you got a bank account piled up with dough. Did you ever think of that?”  
  
Bucky’s eyes widened a little.  “No,” he admitted.  
  
“Buck, you’re not in this alone,” Steve said.  “You wanna take care of me, I get it, but you gotta know, the urge in me to take care of you is just as strong.  Just because you’re big and brawny, and I’m little and weak…” Steve started to get mad, like he always did when he thought about the ways his body failed him.  
  
“No,” Bucky said.  “You take care of me in ways you don’t even realize.” His strong, gentle hands grabbed Steve’s thin biceps.  “You look into my eyes and talk to me like I matter.  I don’t think — I don’t remember, so I don’t know for sure — but it feels like not a lot of people have ever looked at me that way.”  
  
“But Dugan — he respects you.  He said you’re one of the best. Crack shot, finished school ahead of time.” Steve had always been too sick to really excel at schoolwork.  He’d lost a whole year to rheumatic fever alone.  
  
Bucky shrugged, his thumbs rubbing lightly up and down Steve’s arms.  “Maybe.  What’s real to me is the way I feel when you look at me.  Like everyone else makes me want to fight.  Everybody always sizing me up.  Ready to take me on.  Tryna push me down in the dirt.  You don’t look at me like that.”  
  
Steve was mesmerized by Bucky’s face as he spoke, his soft, rumbling voice as he listed the trials of his existence.  
  
“How do I look at you, Buck?” Steve whispered.  The room was dark, but safe.  One dim bulb in a wall sconce by the door threw more shadow than light around the room.  Bucky’s face was a masterpiece of darkness and light, like a Caravaggio.    
  
“Like I’m something you wanna look at —“ Bucky said, his lips parted, his eyes soft and inviting.  
  
“I do,” Steve said, and he leaned up on his toes to press his lips against Bucky’s. “You’re gorgeous.”  
  
“No,” Bucky smiled.  “That’s not what I mean.  This mug, I don’t know much, but I know it’s a money maker.  That’s not how you look at me either, well, not entirely.”  
  
They laughed together. “I’m pretty sure I do,” Steve said, blushing.  
  
“Nah,” Bucky said.  “You look, but you see inside.  I don’t know how.  You see who I am, when I don’t even know who that is.”  
  
“Yeah,” Steve said, “that’s true.  I do know you.”  
  
He didn’t qualify it, and he didn’t elaborate.  He didn’t need to.  He just raised his face to Bucky, eager for the hot, devouring kisses his lover rained down.  
  
“Show me what you like,” Steve whispered. “We gotta be quiet, I know, but I want…”   Bucky had given so much to Steve — his mouth, his hand, his fingers doing things Steve had never imagined — Steve wanted to give back.    
  
“Touch me,” Bucky said.  “Real soft and tender.  I’ll be quiet, I’ll be so good.”  
  
Steve let Bucky guide his hands, stroking and soothing Bucky, gentle the way he asked.  Steve was always trying to prove himself — gentleness wouldn’t have been his first instinct — he wanted to be hard, a man for Bucky like Bucky was for him.  But he knew firsthand the devastating power of Bucky’s restrained touches — so he let himself be soft, whatever Bucky needed.  
  
“Don’t take off our clothes,” Bucky said, “in case…”  
  
Steve felt safe in the room, the locked door.  The boarding house was full of tired men, sleeping hard after working long days.  Footsteps up and down the hall, low men’s voices, it didn’t feel to Steve like a dangerous place.  But if Bucky felt safer not getting undressed, Steve would respect that.    
  
Steve unbuttoned Bucky’s shirt one button at a time, revealing the strong muscles of his chest and a soft nest of curling dark hair.  Steve’s blond hair was fine and he wasn’t a very hairy guy, but he loved the feel of Bucky’s furred chest against his face.  He sought out a nipple and sucked, feeling it when Bucky hissed his pleasure almost as if it were Bucky’s mouth on him.  He suckled there a long time, combing his fingers across Bucky’s chest, and let his mind drift as he poked with his tongue and nipped now and then.  Bucky began to squirm.    
  
Steve stoked his courage and began to kiss his way down to Bucky’s belly, and lower.     
  
“Stevie, Steve,” Bucky moaned, so quiet, trembling all over.  He was so hard when Steve touched him, quivering against Steve’s soothing touch.    
  
“Dear God, Stevie, you’re taking me apart,” Bucky whispered as Steve undid his fly and kissed his way inside.    
  
Bucky was all the way hard, hot and smooth against Steve’s lips.  The smell of Bucky between his legs was musky and dark, a good smell to Steve.  He tested Bucky’s prick with his tongue, licking and tasting.  It tasted good, the taste of Bucky’s clean skin, with something a little sharper where slick was beginning to seep out of Bucky.  He remembered how Bucky had swallowed him down and he knew he couldn’t do that — he wouldn’t have the air, and he would choke. But he could use his hand, he liked the way it felt to wrap his hand around Bucky’s prick — nothing he hadn’t done to himself, though the angle was different.  He knew that ache, the yearning to get inside a hot, slick grip.  He could give that to Bucky.  He wanted to.    
  
For something that was so looked down upon, forbidden, Steve saw the appeal right away.  Bucky’s little hitching breaths at the touch of Steve’s lips and tongue, the way his hips trembled when Steve took him in hand, it was intoxicating.  Bucky’s smooth skin in his mouth as he licked and kissed his way down  — there wasn’t anything nasty or dirty about it.  It was Bucky.  He took Bucky’s prick into his mouth, keeping his teeth well hidden, moving his tongue a little the way Bucky had on him.    
  
Bucky had an arm thrown across his face, panting through his nose, trying not to make a sound.  He was holding himself back so hard.  Steve felt so powerful, something he’d never thought to associate with this position.   And it made him so hot, the feel of taking Bucky inside his mouth, stroking him with hand and tongue, dragging his tight lips against Bucky’s length as he moved him in and out.    
  
“Steve, Stevie, Steve,” Bucky panted, hissing Steve’s name in a constant litany of pleasure.    
  
Bucky’s other hand crept into Steve’s hair, petting him with a light caress.  Steve pressed back with his head, urging Bucky to guide him.    
  
Bucky groaned, thrusting a little with his hips despite himself.  
  
“Steve, I’m gonna — “  
  
Steve wanted him to.  He sped his hand and kept his mouth on Bucky, licking in just the right place as Bucky pulsed and spilled inside Steve’s mouth.    
  
It was thick but not too bitter. Steve swallowed and Bucky trembled, petting Steve with a nerveless hand until he let it flop to the side and Steve pulled off. He tucked Bucky away and tidied his pants.  
  
“Steve,” Bucky moaned, pulling Steve closer. Steve was a little surprised when Bucky kissed him, probing his mouth with his tongue, as though seeking out every trace of himself.  Bucky’s strong arms held Steve tight and Steve was hard against Bucky’s leg — it felt so good.    
  
“Mmm, Stevie,” Bucky said, then all of sudden, Steve was flat on his back, and Bucky was opening his pants and swallowing him down.  Bucky’s hand snuck behind Steve’s balls, pressing against him in a place that made something inside him feel electric, and Steve exploded down Bucky’s throat, seeing stars and planets and comets and galaxies, pouring himself out till nothing was left.    
  
“Stevie,” Bucky murmured, settling Steve snug against him under the thin blankets.    
  
Utterly relaxed, Steve fell asleep in Bucky’s arms.    
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone lives in Cleveland, I'm sorry -- I'm doing all my research online! I'll humbly take any corrections or suggestions. 
> 
> In the 1930s, Cleveland was the fifth largest municipality in the US!!
> 
> I hope Bucky isn't too hairy for you all. I come from a different era when people weren't so WAXED. A soft nest of chest hair is wonderful, I promise! I feel so sorry for Chris Evans, being waxed to within an inch of his life when he has to play Steve.


	8. Cleveland morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get rolling in Cleveland for Bucky and Steve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's taken me so long to get this posted. I've been super busy with RL but things ought to calm down a little soon.  
> Rest assured this story is plotted out and will be completed come what may.

Steve opened his eyes before the sun rose.  Warm and safe in Bucky’s arms, he felt like he’d never slept so soundly. Even with the long and tiring journey of the day before, he’d eaten well, slept well, and felt completely refreshed.    
  
He remembered being a child, cuddling with his mother.  Sometimes, when he was young, she had let him sleep in her bed.  But sleeping in a bed with Bucky was nothing like that.  Bucky gave off heat like a furnace and clung to Steve in his sleep, wrapping his strong limbs around the smaller man and holding tight all night.  
  
Steve’s mind, awake, began to run through tasks for the day — what to eat, where to get money, how to avoid getting caught.  Further, they needed to know why Dugan said there was bad blood around Ness, and what that meant for Bucky.  
  
“Stevie, you breathe really loud when you’re thinking,” Bucky mumbled, eyes closed.    
  
Steve scoffed.  “Yeah, I know.  It’s the asthma.”  
  
“One thing after another with you,” Bucky said, sticking his nose deeper along the side of Steve’s neck.  “But you sure do smell good.”  
  
“If you say so,” Steve muttered.  “Come on, let’s wake up.  No sense lying in bed all day.”  
  
“Okay,” Bucky said.  “But I want five more minutes.”  
  
“Five more minutes why,” Steve demanded.  
  
Bucky rolled Steve onto his back, and rolled himself on top of Steve; their morning wood lined up neat, though both men were fully clothed.    
  
Steve smiled up at him and Bucky smiled down, rubbing the tip of his nose back and forth across Steve’s very lightly.    
  
“Cause I like to look at you,” Bucky drawled.  “I like to get you just where I want you, then keep you there a while.”  
  
“Mm,” Steve said.  He had to admit, he liked it too.  He’d never imagined how pleasant it would be to have a man’s weight pinning him down, hot and hard like Bucky was.    
  
Bucky lightly scraped his cheek along Steve’s.  Bucky needed a shave — Steve’s blond fuzz took a lot longer to grow in.   But Steve liked the feel of it, scratchy against his face but not too rough.  
  
Bucky rained soft kisses here and there on Steve’s face, and Steve just lay there smiling.  Anyway there was nothing he could have done to resist — Bucky outweighed him by so much — but he liked it, so he smiled.    
  
“What do you want to do today?” Steve asked. “I got a million thoughts.”  
  
“Name em,” Bucky said, distracted by nuzzling.    
  
“Well, we oughta try and figure out where you might have had a bank account.”  
  
“Credit union closest to the police station,” Bucky said without hesitation.  “Oh. Huh.”  
  
“And we need to get you a hat or something.  That coat is great, but you kind of stand out.”  
  
“Hat is good — we’ll find a five and dime that’ll have something,” Bucky grinned.  
  
“Food,” Steve said, his stomach rumbling helpfully as he spoke.  “Groceries?”  
  
“Diner,” Bucky said — “at least for breakfast.  There is no life without hot coffee.”  
  
“And get a paper and see what’s what,” Steve said.  “See what Ness has been up to, that sort of thing.”  
  
“Mmhm,” Bucky agreed.  His eyes had drifted closed and he was grinding a little against Steve. “Anything else?”  
  
“Mmm,” Steve gasped.  “Not — that I can — think of. Are we gonna do this in our only clean pants?”  
  
Bucky gave a dangerous grin and undid his fly and Steve’s in a moment.  Pulling up their shirts, he had them skin against skin even though they were still fully clothed.  The feel of Bucky’s prick against his set Steve on fire, just like it had the first time in Zola’s washroom.  Steve grit his teeth and tried to stay quiet.    
  
“Open your eyes,” Bucky whispered, so he did, staring up at Bucky through his heavy lashes.  
  
“Oh Stevie, yeah,” Bucky moaned, so quiet, moving on top of Steve, smooth as water.    
  
The morning shivered, cold outside the blankets but ablaze between Steve and Bucky.  
  
Liquid fire spilled between them and Bucky shook on top of Steve, holding himself up on his arms.    
  
As Steve lay stunned, Bucky kissed his neck tenderly, then shimmied down and licked Steve’s belly clean.    
  
Before he knew it they were dressed and on the street outside, faces clean for the morning, still a little money in Bucky’s pocket, looking for a decent cup of coffee. They’d passed a diner near the train station the night before, so they headed back that way.  As luck would have it, they also passed a charity shop selling used clothing, where Bucky found a pork pie hat that fit his big head and Steve found a flat cap that sat fairly well on his smaller crown.     
  
Outside the diner, Steve picked up the three Cleveland papers and gave the newsboy a dime. Steve followed Bucky, who kept his head down and made for a booth toward the back.  
  
They ordered coffee and looked over the menu.  Steve still felt bad about Bucky’s money, but he didn’t know what they would have done without a few dollars in their pocket.  On his agenda for the day was buying some groceries so they didn’t have to live off restaurants — they couldn’t afford it — but first thing in the morning, a hot cooked meal was gratifying to the stomach.  The cheapest thing on the menu was oatmeal, which Steve ordered, and Bucky ordered three hardboiled eggs and a buttered roll. Hot coffee lifted their spirits and warmed their hands.  The diner was clean and brightly lit, and Steve had the feeling that with Bucky around, things would somehow work out.    
  
The waitress slid a piece of apple pie onto the table, a big dollop of vanilla ice cream already melting over it.  
  
“The lady says she owes you one,” the waitress muttered.    
  
Steve sat up, blushing as he realized they were already being observed. Before he could school his response, his eyes had darted to the counter where the lady sat, prim and straight backed in a conservative gray suit and a modest hat in vivid contrast to the flame red coiffure she’d tamed into a bun at the nape of her neck.  She was watching them out of the corner of her eye.    
  
Bucky reacted more discreetly, lowering his eyelids at the waitress in a coy fashion.    
  
“A lady never owes me nothing,” he drawled.  “A gentleman’s services are always free to a lady.” His wicked smile made the thin-lipped waitress blush.    
  
The waitress scoffed and topped up their coffee.  “I seen you and her in here a while back; you ain’t foolin me none.”  
  
Bucky nodded slow, hiding his surprise at this revelation.  “Please convey to the lady my kindest regards,” he said. “And thanks for the pie.”  
  
The waitress scoffed again but made her way with deliberation back to the counter.  Bucky picked up his fork, split the pie in half, and ate his share in half a dozen big bites.  Steve slowly followed suit, but he couldn’t keep his nervous eyes from darting to the redhead at the counter.  
  
Bucky laid down the money for the meal and stood up, slowly straightening his coat and sauntering toward the door.  Steve could see that the redhead had finished her coffee and was now merely scanning a folded up section of newspaper.    
  
Bucky stepped out onto the sidewalk.  It was a lovely, crisp October morning.  Bucky stood and breathed the air, looking up and down the street as if trying to make up his mind.    
  
The redhead emerged from the diner at a pretty fast clip and bumped hard into Bucky, who steadied her on her feet. They looked into each other’s eyes for one long moment — cool gray meeting rich hazel.  The dame had a face that stopped Steve dead, as an artist and as a man.  Wide set eyes, a generous mouth, something so knowing and yet so delicate in the set of her features.    
  
“Excuse me,” she murmured.  
  
“No problem, ma’am,” Bucky answered.  
  
The lady stood herself back on her heels.  The corner of her mouth twitched, one fine eyebrow gently rose.  She nodded politely and turned to the right.  In a minute her long stride had carried her around the corner.    
  
“Damn,” Bucky said.  
  
Steve frowned, but couldn’t really blame Bucky for watching the dame go.  
  
Bucky turned Steve the opposite way down the street, and after they’d gone a ways, he pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket.  It was a business card — Eliot Ness’s card as Safety Director for the City of Cleveland.  “11 am” was penciled on the back.    
  
“So let’s buy some groceries,” Bucky smiled, “and head back to the flop and read through these papers.  Looks like we landed ourselves a connection.”  
  
Steve grinned.  Their first day in Cleveland was going remarkably well.    
  
  
  
  
  



	9. Ness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky get into the thick of things.

They stopped at a corner store and bought some bread, cheese and apples to last them a couple of days.  Steve knew in his heart that he could never deny Bucky a trip into the diner for a hot cup of coffee, and the oatmeal really didn’t cost very much.  
  
Back at the flop they each took a paper.  Light came in through the window and they moved the bed a little in the tiny, bare room to make the best of it.    
  
Steve scanned the headlines, reading a little way down into each article, not knowing particularly what he was looking for:  another oil refinery laying off its workers;  ongoing expansion of a steel mill recently acquired by New York conglomerate Stark Industries;  Ness cracking down on organized crime (that much never changed); a popular congressman campaigning for re-election.    
  
“Mmm,” Bucky griped at his paper.    
  
“What?” Steve asked.  
  
Bucky shook out his paper and lifted it into better light.  “Editorial. Says here Ness’s marriage is on the rocks.”  
  
“That’s a low blow, airing a guy’s family troubles in the paper,” Steve frowned.  
  
“Well, that’s just a preamble to the real problem,” Bucky said. “Get this. ‘Director Ness has no excuse for his reprehensible actions in August, burning the worldly goods of men rousted from Kingsbury Run.  Despite his claims that the raid would bring the Mad Butcher to light, the murderer remains at large.’”  
  
“Murderer?” Steve repeated, sitting up straight.  “Mad Butcher? What?”  
  
Bucky scanned down the editorial. “Um.  Yeah. ‘Ness has failed in his task of restoring public safety to Cleveland.  With fourteen victims and counting, the Mad Butcher has Cleveland in a state of terror, while Ness is spotted around town keeping company with two ladies, neither of whom are his wife.”  
  
Steve frowned as Bucky read on.  “Mrs. Rushman, dubbed the Black Widow after a series of fortunate matches, is one of the Midwest’s wealthiest ladies.  Mr. Ness lists Peggy Carter amongst his ‘untouchables,’ but having spotted the two of them together on many occasions, we must wonder (along with the present Mrs. Ness) how accurate the moniker remains.”  
  
“It’s bad enough they’re badmouthing Ness on supposition, but dragging a lady’s name into the paper is going too far!” Steve protested.    
  
“Two ladies,” Bucky said.  “And he already has a wife.  This guy must be terrific.”  
  
“Hmph!” Steve scoffed, appalled at the tone of the speculation.  “Anyway, back to all that about a murderer?”  
  
“That’s all this one says,” Bucky apologized. “Anything in yours?”  
  
Steve flipped back into the editorials and scanned for Ness’s name.    
  
“Oh!  Here.  ’With Butcher Still at Large, Ness Resignation Due.’  Says here that two of the bodies were dumped right across the street from his office.  Cut to pieces.”  
  
Bucky said nothing, and when Steve looked up, he was sweating a little, staring at nothing.    
  
“Buck? You okay?”  
  
His gaze flickered to Steve’s, the pupils huge. “Cut to pieces,” he muttered.  
  
“Yeah?” Steve asked.  “Sorry, it’s pretty awful.  But I guess you’ve seen a lot of awful things in vice.”  
  
“I wouldn’t know,” Bucky murmured faintly.  
  
“Hey,” Steve said, concerned.  “Let me get you a cup of water.” Steve took the tin cup from the washstand and went down the hall to the tap, bringing back a cup of cold water for Bucky.  
  
Downing the water helped a little. He shook his head and his color improved.  
  
“Just. I been reading that book of Frankenstein,” Bucky said, “thinking how familiar it all seems. And now this.  Seems like I see these bodies, torsos, heads, limbs, cut up, when I close my eyes.  Sometimes, it’s like they’re still moving.”  
  
Steve didn’t know what to say. Anything he could think of to say sounded stupid in the face of the horror that was written plain as day in two newspapers.  
  
“Maybe that’s why you don’t remember much,” Steve whispered.  “Maybe it’s better, not remembering.”  
  
“Yeah,” Bucky said, still looking pretty shaky. Steve scooted closer and put his arm around Bucky, rubbing in the middle of his back, the way his mother used to soothe him when things got to be too much.  
  
Steve could feel a fine tremor running through Bucky’s body.  He moved even closer, urging Bucky flat onto the bed, and pulled him as close as he could.  Even though Bucky was much taller and outweighed Steve, lying flat those differences didn’t matter, and Steve could cradle his lover close, wrap his arms around him, soothing and petting him.  Finally Bucky’s shaking evened out.  
  
“Neither of us has a watch, and I can’t hear the town bells,” Steve muttered.  
  
“It’s just nearing ten,” Bucky murmured.  
  
“Did you hear the three quarters bells?” Steve asked.  
  
“Nah,” Bucky said. “I just know.”  
  
“How much time we got until we need to head for Ness’s office?” Steve asked.    
  
“A while,” Bucky said, unmoving in Steve’s arms.    
  
“You wanna?” Steve said, already spoiled by Bucky’s attentions.  
  
Bucky shook his head the slightest bit and nuzzled further into Steve’s neck.  Steve tightened his embrace and didn’t let go.    
  
As they lay together, breathing, sharing warmth, Steve felt Bucky’s heartbeat slow to normal.  This reaction was merely a shadow of the terrible things that had happened to Bucky here in Cleveland.  Had he been on the trail of the murderer? Had he gotten too close?  
  
Steve saw that all signs pointed to yes.     
  
The walk to Ness’s office was a quiet one.  Bucky kept his head down, walking as fast as Steve could manage.  Inside the lobby, they bypassed the front desk and made for the elevators, going straight to Ness’s offices on the top floor of the building.    
  
A pretty blonde greeted Bucky by name.  “Sergeant Barnes, how good it is to see you. Mr. Ness said to show you right in. Your name, sir?”  
  
“Steve Rogers, ma’am,” Steve replied.  He didn’t see any point in giving a false name, since the secretary clearly knew Bucky, just like the redhead at the diner.     
  
Steve and Bucky followed Ness’s secretary to the wooden doors of his inner office.  She knocked lightly and edged the door opened.  
  
“Mr. Ness, Sergeant Barnes is here, with Mr. Steve Rogers.”  
  
“Thank you, Sharon,” a mild voice answered.  “We’re not to be disturbed.”  
  
“Of course, sir,” Sharon responded and closed the doors firmly behind Steve and Bucky.  
  
They expected to see Ness.  They didn’t expect him to be flanked on both sides women in leather desk chairs: on the left, by the woman from the diner, and on the right by a brunette with fire in her eyes, who unleashed a storm of British remonstrances at Bucky.    
  
“Barnes!  Where on earth have you been? What’s happened? No reports since the middle of August, and here it is late October!”  
  
“Peggy, give the man a chance to catch his breath,” Ness said.  His calm, quiet demeanor was not what Steve expected from the man who had taken on the mob in Chicago.  “Sit down, let me get you a cup of coffee.”  
  
The ladies sat still while Ness bustled at the sideboard, filling cups from a carafe for both Bucky and Steve.  
  
All eyes were on Bucky as Ness sat back down.  
  
“Sorry,” he said, “I don’t know where I’ve been.  All I remember is waking up in New York City a couple days ago.”  
  
“New York City?” Peggy challenged, bright eyes trained on Bucky.  
  
“Why don’t you introduce us to your friend,” the other drawled, perfectly coiffed and immaculate in her gray suit.  
  
“You have us at a disadvantage,” Steve said politely.  “I’m Steve Rogers, just as the secretary said.  And you are?”  
  
“I’m the Black Widow,” she smirked.  
  
“Natalia,” Bucky murmured.    
  
The redhead’s gaze snapped to Bucky. “If you know that name, you know more than you’re letting on.”  
  
“I really don’t,” Bucky said. “But sometimes, something settles into place.”  
  
“You woke up in New York City — where?” Peggy demanded.  
  
“Lernaean Laboratories,” Steve said, and all eyes focused on him.  “I’m an artist.  I work in scientific illustration.  I was hired by Dr. Arnim Zola to document his experiments in healing and regeneration.  I, um, quit when they brought, uh, Sergeant Barnes in as a test subject.”  
  
“I don’t blame you,” Mrs. Rushman muttered.  
  
Steve blushed but didn’t fidget.    
  
“Barnes — you have a memory loss?” Peggy asked.    
  
“Yeah,” he admitted.  “I sure don’t know how I could forget a dame like you.” He gave a wry grin and shot a look at Peggy from under his lashes that made her frown.  
  
“If you remembered me, you’d know that I don’t take kindly to that sort of remark,” Peggy said archly.  
  
“He remembered me,” Mrs. Rushman murmured, staring at Bucky from beneath lowered lids. Steve wasn’t sure he approved of Natalie Rushman, but he had to admire her moxie.  
  
“Memory loss,” Ness noted. “We brought in a few fellas who claimed they couldn’t remember where they’d been on certain nights in question.  Common excuse, of course, even when it can’t be blamed on the bottle.”  
  
“I’m not sure that’s all it is,” Mrs. Rushman said.  “I hadn’t mentioned it, but I had a memory lapse when I toured the Ohio Soldier’s Home a few months ago with Alexander Pierce.”  
  
“Head coroner when I first came to Cleveland,” Ness explained to Steve, but as he spoke, Bucky lurched to his feet, fists clenched, face a twisted mask, an awful noise tearing free from his throat.    
  
Steve watched in horror as Bucky struggled to speak through gritted teeth.    
  
“Alexander Pierce,” Bucky growled.  “I knew him.  Cut off one head…”  
  
Bucky’s knees gave, and Steve just barely managed to catch his friend as he went down.    


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the things in this chapter are based on fact. The craziest bit is that the head coroner really was Pierce. !!!  
> In order to make this a Steve and Bucky story, I have changed certain things. If you know anything about the Butcher of Kingsbury Run, you will see that an MCU explanation actually makes MORE sense than the terrible things that actually happened.


	10. Miss Carter and Mrs. Rushman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky meet the Untouchables.

 Bucky’s knees gave, and Steve just barely managed to catch his friend as he went down.    
  
“Cut off one head… cut off one head…” Bucky was whispering in an awful, hoarse gasp.    
  
Mrs. Rushman had circled round the desk, squatted down on her low heels, and gave Bucky a hard slap across the face. She barked at him in a language Steve didn’t understand. Russian maybe?  The shape of her hand left a livid red mark across the pale, clammy skin of Bucky’s cheek.  
  
“Natasha!” Ness exclaimed.  
  
Steve glared daggers but wouldn’t lift a finger against a woman.  The redhead ignored him.  
  
Peggy watched with her sharp black eyes as Bucky came around.  He’d never really lost consciousness, but he clearly hadn’t been aware of his surroundings.    
  
“Do you know where you are?” Mrs. Rushman — Natalie? Natasha? — said in plain English.  
  
“Yeah,” Bucky croaked.  “I — We’re in Cleveland, in Eliot Ness’s office.”  
  
“What do you remember about Alexander Pierce?” she demanded.  
  
Bucky shuddered. Steve felt his whole body go tense, like he wanted to fight.   Steve suddenly realized how bad it looked, the way he was cradling Bucky’s body with his own, the horrified, intense concern he felt written over his face.  Was this how a good friend might react — or did it look too intimate? Would the others see and begin to question the loyalty Steve felt towards Bucky after such a short time—  complete strangers to roommates, secretly something very much more?  
  
Bucky struggled to answer Natasha. “It’s — I know — there’s something I know — but I can’t get at it — it’s frozen, behind a wall of ice.  I can make out the blurred outlines— it’s something awful.”  
  
“You said, ‘cut off one head.’” Peggy Carter’s crisp inflections cut through the room. “What does that mean?”  
  
Steve thought it must have to do with the newspaper accounts they’d read earlier in the morning, but he kept his mouth shut.  
  
“I keep seeing — like in a nightmare — these horrible things. Horrible things.  Arms — legs — bodies — heads — alive.  Cut up — but alive!”  
  
Silently Steve urged Bucky to sit up, away from Steve’s body a little.  He wobbled, but managed it.   Steve made to stand up, to get Bucky a chair, but Bucky latched onto him with a shaking hand.  “Steve— I’m gonna be sick,” he gasped.  
  
In one swift move, Natasha had grabbed the waste can and held it next to Bucky, not a moment too soon, as he lost what was left of his breakfast into the can.  
  
Ness went to the door of his office and in a moment Sharon had brought a pitcher of cold water.  Steve helped Bucky into a chair and held the cup while Bucky sipped. Surreptitiously Steve tried to gauge the reactions of Ness and the women to Bucky’s collapse. To Steve’s surprise, they were much less shocked and alarmed than he would have expected.  
  
“I’m sorry to make such a mess,” Bucky said, hanging his head in embarrassment, but looking a little better.  Steve avoided glancing at Ness as he held Bucky’s half-emptied cup.    
  
“Don’t worry about it, son — think nothing of it,” Ness said kindly.   “The things I’ve seen since I came to Cleveland would turn any man’s stomach. You may not remember, but you’ve seen the worst of it — in police files and in person —  undercover with Zelewski and Merylo before we lost track of you. There’ve been at least a dozen murders — probably more —and only a few of those victims identified.  How many more passing vagrants have been snatched up and cut to pieces, and no one has missed them? The public have excoriated me for burning down Kingsbury Run. But after you disappeared, Barnes — what else could I do?” Ness shook his head, frowning in frustration.  
  
“Huh?” Bucky said. Even Steve’s head was swimming with so much information.  At least a dozen murders —one paper had said fourteen -- but maybe even more than that?  
  
Ness threw his hands down onto his desk in frustration.  “If only you could remember what happened  to you!  I recruited you from New York’s finest to go undercover in Kingsbury Run, hoping to trap the Butcher in his own hunting grounds. When you didn’t check in we feared the worst. We tore that place apart looking for you.”  
  
“Then there was the blue blazer,” Peggy said.  Ness shook his head as if trying to shake loose the memory.      
  
“What?” Steve asked. Bucky’s sharp blue coat was hanging on the coat tree.  Bucky shook his head, frowning.    
  
“Barnes was undercover, but not trying to seem penniless. He took on the persona of a gambler, a gigolo— dressed well, fit in with the nightlife in the city’s underworld.  A day or so after he’d last reported in, a woman’s torso was found wrapped in his best blue blazer. The head and limbs were wrapped separately in brown paper and the body was dumped right over there, across the street.” Peggy indicated the office window, where the bright October sun made a mockery of their hellish conversation.  
  
Bucky coughed again, and closed his eyes, swallowing convulsively.  Steve couldn’t help it.  Whatever they thought, he wasn’t going to let Bucky suffer.  He laid his hand between Bucky’s shoulders and rubbed, little circles that he already knew would soothe the man.  None of the others seemed to care.  
  
A strained silence fell.  
  
“I hate to say it,” Natasha put in, “but based on the reaction Barnes had to the name of Alexander Pierce, he may be the missing connection.”  
  
Ness shook his head grimly. “I worked side by side with Pierce for years. As a medical examiner devoted to scientific methods, he’s held in the highest esteem.”  
  
Peggy shot an inquiring look at Natasha.  “You say you suffered a memory lapse when you visited the soldiers’ asylum with Pierce — but why didn’t you say anything before?”  
  
Natasha, surprisingly, blushed. “Such a lapse is nothing new to me.  I spent two years in Budapest before you knew me, analyzed by the great Ivchenko, but my memory still plays tricks on me.”  
  
“Like what?” Steve asked.  
  
“Like what happened at the asylum.  To my mind, I spent a pleasant hour with Dr. Pierce, touring the facility, visiting with patients, and considering how my money could do the greatest good.  In reality, however, I was there all morning and most of the afternoon.  I have no recollection of the missing hours.”  
  
“How often does this happen?” Peggy demanded.  
  
Natasha’s smile was grim. “It’s hard to know what it is you don’t know.”  
  
“Unless you know you don’t know anything,” Bucky laughed through a crooked grin.    
  
“You know my birth name,” Natasha pointed out.  “And I don’t remember ever telling it to you.”  
  
“You worked together months, he probably knew your name,” Steve muttered.    
  
Natasha shot him a look.  “What makes you think I worked with him? I’m a philanthropist.”  
  
“You passed him a note,” Steve shot back. “Why else are we in this office?”  
  
Natasha met his challenge with cool green eyes and said nothing.  
  
“Why does a socialite eat breakfast in a diner, and pass notes to hobos?” Steve demanded.    
  
“Hey! I ain’t a hobo!” Bucky roused himself to deny.    
  
Peggy, Natasha and Ness all traded glances.  Finally Ness nodded.  
  
“Natasha and I are old school chums,” Peggy said.  “When she moved to town, she seemed like a valuable ally.  Especially since our prime suspect is someone we can’t touch.”  
  
“Cousin of a congressman, clearly unhinged,” Ness sighed.  “Medical doctor, but a drunk, a wife-beater, and crazy as a loon. Checks himself in and out of the asylum at will.  Timing matches up with the murders.  But I don’t have enough hard evidence to satisfy the District Attorney.”  
  
“So you sent Natasha to the asylum?” Steve asked.  “What could anyone possibly hope to learn on a philanthropic tour?”  
  
“I thought I might notice if something felt — off,” Natasha said.  
  
“But it did,” Steve said, “only for some reason, you didn’t mention it.”  
  
“I trust Natasha implicitly,” Peggy said, bristling at Steve.    
  
“Huh,” Ness said, rocking back in his desk chair.  “So this is what we’ve got.  Natasha lost most of a day spent with Pierce.  Barnes can’t remember anything except that Pierce is connected to the idea of cutting off heads.”  
  
“One more thing,” Steve said. All eyes turned to him.  “Zola. He told me Bucky was a volunteer — but also, he claimed he was a mental patient who’d tried to commit suicide. That ties him to the asylum, doesn’t it?”  
  
“What did you say Zola studied?” Ness asked.     
  
“Wounds — he was working on injections to promote healing and regeneration. Before Bucky, I never saw any indication he’d worked on humans. Though, he did offer to devise a serum to help me, once his research was a little farther along.”  
  
“You’re not wounded,” Peggy pointed out.  
  
“Heart damage from rheumatic fever; deaf in one ear from multiple infections; anemic from stomach ulcers; and also, asthma.” Steve crossly checked off his ailments on his fingers, leaving out his colorblindness and slight curvature of the spine.  
  
Everyone sat silent for a moment, wondering how to proceed.  
  
“Do you really think Pierce could have ties to the Butcher?” Ness asked.    
  
“It could explain the variations between Pierce’s postmortems and Sam Gerber’s reports now that Pierce is no longer chief medical examiner,” Peggy said.    
  
“But what’s the motive?” Ness asked.  
  
Silence fell.  The murders in Cleveland were so grotesque that any speculation as to why they’d been committed was almost unbearable.  
  
“For the betterment of mankind,” Steve whispered.  
  
“What?” Ness asked.    
  
“Zola always said that.  He said it was all for the betterment of mankind.”  Steve shuddered as he remembered it, not a handful of days behind him; the stench of pain that reeked from the animals’ cages; the endless procession of furry, broken bodies; the final straw, Bucky’s furious howling.    
  
“You think we’re dealing with some sort of violent futurists?” Ness demanded.  
  
Steve shrugged.  “I don’t know. But it seems like the asylum is your only real lead.”  
  
As Steve said it, everyone knew it was true.    
  
“But what do we do about it?” Ness said.  
  
“I could go,” Steve volunteered. “My father died in a soldier’s home; exposure to mustard gas had damaged his lungs.”  
  
“But why?” Bucky asked.  “There isn’t going to be a stop on the tour labelled ‘suspicious activities.’”  
  
“Of course not,” Steve said.  “But at least I’ll know where they don’t want us to look.”  
  
“I don’t like it,” Bucky said, frowning darkly. “Why send Steve into the lion’s den?”  
  
“We don’t know it’s a lion’s den,” Ness said.  “It’s only to get a feel for the place, and to meet PIerce.”  
  
“Why would he want to meet me?” Steve asked.  “I’m nobody.”  
  
“I send you with an introduction. The man is a colleague.  Frankly, I can’t imagine he has anything to do with any of this.  It’s that insane Doctor Sweeney we want.”  
  
“I’ll do it,” Steve said.  “What can happen in broad daylight?”  
  
Bucky knocked on wood.  
  
“By the way, Barnes,” Ness said.  “Where are you staying?  This memory loss of yours could be a problem if you run into folks who knew you when you were undercover.”  
  
“We got a room in a flophouse,” Bucky said,  “but it’s clean, and quiet.”    
  
“I have a question,” Steve asked.  “Is Bucky a transfer to the regular Cleveland police force, or does he report to you alone?”  
  
Ness met Bucky’s eye with his mild gaze.  “It’s so odd that you don’t remember anything.  Technically, the City of Cleveland is your employer, but you work for me, under the Department of Public Safety.  I feel it’s necessary to have some independence from the regular police force.”  
  
“But I worked with other undercover men?” Bucky asked.  
  
“Yes — Merylo and Zelewski, good men.”  
  
Bucky’s brow knit as he was unable to pull up a picture of them in his mind.   “Maybe I could meet with them, find out more about my own habits while I was undercover.”  
  
Peggy shook her head. “Ever since the raid, public opinion has been against this office, so the police aren’t necessarily in our camp any more. They’ll do whatever it takes to land a suspect.”  
  
“You have a special freedom right now,” Natasha said. “Everyone thinks you’re dead, so no one’s expecting to see you. If I were you, I’d keep being alive under wraps as long as possible.”  
  
Ness said, “That’s probably right,”  and Peggy agreed.  
  
“We’ll get that asylum visit set up for you, Steve,” Ness said, standing, “and let you know when it will be.”  
  
“I’ll meet you again at the diner,” Natasha said.    
  
Steve nodded and stood, and Ness reached out his hand and grasped Steve’s firmly.  “Thanks for bringing him back mostly in one piece,” Ness said sincerely.  “This town has been terrorized now for years — we need the steadiest men we can find.”  
  
Peggy sucked her teeth a little pointedly. “And women,” Ness amended.  
  
“Right,” Peggy said.  “Do you need anything?”  
  
Steve looked at Bucky, but said nothing.  
  
“As long as the folks at the credit union recognize me — and no one else does —  we’re in good shape,” Bucky said.  
  
“Welcome to the world of fighting crime and skullduggery,” Peggy said.  
  
“Thanks,” Steve said wryly.    
  
Bucky’s stomach had settled enough to walk, so they shook hands with Ness and the ladies and left the Safety Director’s office.    
  
Bucky let out a huge breath of relief when they were once again on the street.  
  
“You okay?” Steve asked.  
  
“This whole shebang feels like it’s about to blow,” Bucky said.  “Like a fuse just coming down to the wire.”  
  
“Well, I’m glad I’ll be going to the asylum alone,” Steve said.  “I don’t want you running into Pierce.”  
  
Bucky twitched at the mere mention of the name.  
  
“Me neither, to be honest,” Bucky said.  “But I want you to be safe too.”  
  
“I’ll be safe,” Steve reassured him.    
  
“Hm,” Bucky said and superstitiously reached out again to knock on wood.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sadly, many of the details you see worked into this story are facts from the Kingsbury Run murders, which actually took place. o_O


	11. The Ohio Soldier's Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve goes to the Ohio Soldier's Home to meet Pierce.

Several days crept slowly by as Ness and his allies set up the appointment for Steve to meet with Pierce at the Soldier's home. 

Bucky went to the credit union and found a substantial account waiting for him, which was a relief to Steve. Even though Bucky was plainly proud of the money he'd raised by selling his services at the bar in New York, Steve couldn't stand the thought of Bucky giving himself over to strangers in that way. They didn't know him; they couldn't possibly appreciate what an amazing man he was; and they had no claim whatsoever to his beauty or his skills — except, Steve had to admit sourly, that Bucky himself saw no problem with the transaction. Steve was glad they could rely on the salary from Bucky's police work instead. The tidy sum in the credit union account was more than he could have made in Cleveland — he must've been saving even when he still lived in New York. Steve didn't want Bucky going out at night "to take care of things" anytime soon. 

Bucky could hardly stand being cooped up in the rooming house. Steve was used to confinement, having spent so many days in sick beds as a kid. He'd lost nearly a year to rheumatic fever alone. Because Bucky ran the danger of being recognized, Steve did the errands — replenishing their groceries at the corner store, checking out books for Bucky from the library. Bucky was a quick and voracious reader, with a distinct preference for fantastical adventures. Steve checked out Wells, Verne, Doyle, Burroughs and Sabatini, and Bucky tore through them all. 

They left their window open most of the time — nights were getting colder but the two of them needed the fresh air. The sounds of traffic, people, trains, and the cooing of pigeons wafted into the room. Every morning, with Bucky's hat pulled down low, they left the room to have a hot breakfast and coffee at the diner where Mrs. Rushman had planned to bring them word.

Bucky was bored, but it wasn't all bad. When Bucky was bored, it meant he sought Steve out for conversations inspired by his reading, and conversation led to embraces, and kisses, and lovemaking. They made love every morning before they left the bed, and at night they explored one another for hours. Bucky was teaching Steve things about himself he'd never known. Steve liked to be held down, whereas Bucky only liked to be told to hold still— he panicked when he was actually tied. Steve liked to be told he was bad —he'd almost known that about himself, since his whole life he'd had a contrary streak a mile wide. Bucky loved to be praised and told how good he was. Steve liked it a little hard, and a little rough; he wanted to show Bucky just how much he could take. But Bucky liked it gentle and tender and sweet. They were opposites, and yet they were miraculously compatible. They fit together in ways Steve had never dared to hope he would ever find in just one person. There was nothing Bucky wouldn't do with any part of Steve's body or his own, but he did it all with a pure and innocent joy that Steve could hardly imagine was real in anyone less than an angel fallen to earth. 

They got to know one another pretty well in that little room; they laughed together, dreamed side by side, and became as one body. Steve knew Bucky better than Bucky knew himself, which might have been regarded as a tragedy, but for them, it was just the way things were. 

To the men it felt like a long time, but in reality only a handful of days had passed before Mrs. Rushman appeared in the diner while Steve and Bucky were savoring their morning coffee. 

Instead of passing them a note, the handsomely dressed lady strode boldly to their table. Steve was a little put off by the red fox stole she'd casually looped around her shoulders to ward off the chill of the morning, its head and paws preserved in a parody of life.

"Excuse me — but aren't you the artist?" she said, a little loudly. 

"Yes, ma'am," Steve answered. 

"Come with me," she said imperiously. "I have a wall that needs something special." 

Steve looked helplessly at Bucky, who shrugged. No time like the present, he said with his eyes. 

Steve nodded to Bucky before he left. Bucky always carried half the money, and they each had a key to the room, so they were prepared. Mrs. Rushman led Steve out of the diner without a second glance at Bucky, and Steve, his heart in his throat, tried to follow suit. 

Natasha, it transpired, was a modern woman in more ways than one. Steve had imagined a wealthy socialite like herself being driven everywhere she went by a liveried chauffeur. Instead, she pulled black leather gloves onto her dainty hands and drove herself in a sleek and powerful automobile with a leaping cat on the hood. 

"I'll drive you to the Soldier's Home," Natasha said. "You have an appointment there with Pierce. You're meant to be looking for a place for your father." 

"My father is dead," Steve said. 

"Yes, but Pierce won't know that," she answered. "Your name will be Steven Grant." Grant was his middle name — apparently Ness and his untouchables had done their homework. 

"How will I know if anything is suspicious?" Steve asked. 

"Just pay attention to your instincts," she said. 

"I'm not sure I'll be much good at this," Steve warned. 

"You're what we've got," Natasha reminded him. They spent the rest of the ride going over Steve's story, bolstered by the facts of his own parents' lives. 

The Home was a little over an hour's drive from Cleveland. Natasha parked outside a diner near the train station, and Steve walked the rest of the way. The day was overcast, not too cold. 

At the main desk, he signed in as Steven Grant and was shown to Dr. Pierce's office. 

"Mr. Grant," Pierce said, shaking his hand. "It's good to meet you. Your father served in the 107th." 

"That's right," Steve said. 

"Brave men, bad times," Pierce sympathized. "This country owes everything to its soldiers. They will shape the century." 

"That's true," Steve agreed. He began to spin the yarn Natasha had coached him on in the car. "I've come from New York to look into this Home. I've had a job offer in Cleveland — good work is hard to find these days you know — so I'm looking for a good place that can accommodate my father." 

"What's his particular trouble?" Pierce asked, looking concerned. His face was lined and craggy, but still shone with charisma and power. 

"Shell shock," Steve said. "He's never been quite right, my whole life. He flies into rages sometimes. My mother couldn't manage him, had to rent a separate room from us for him. Since she's been gone, I've checked in on him myself, but now — moving west — I'd feel better if he had a good place, one where he's better understood." 

"You can be sure he'll be taken care of here," Pierce said. 

Steve shivered. Pierce's words sounded sinister for no real reason. Was this what Mrs Rushman meant by instinct? 

Pierce escorted Steve throughout the institution. As far as Steve could tell, nothing was omitted. He saw the cafeteria, the recreation rooms, the private rooms and dormitories the men shared, and the hospital wing, so similar to the places where his mother had worked until she died. Everything seemed clean and orderly. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary as men roamed the grounds, played cards and board games, or sat nursing cups of coffee and cigarettes in sunny nooks here and there. 

One hallway seemed more closely guarded than the rest, with an attendant who sat a desk at the only way in or out. 

"We encourage our more agitated residents to live on this hall," Pierce said, noticing Steve's frown. "The attendant has special training in helping to calm them. We also offer special treatments to the worst cases to help relieve their suffering." 

"Special treatments?" Steve asked. 

"This institution is no ordinary sanitarium," Pierce said. "We're working here for the betterment of mankind." 

Steve nodded, while his heartbeat kicked into another gear. 

"We offer surgeries that help calm patients dramatically. No one wants to see them suffer," Pierce said. 

Steve nodded mutely, frowning, wondering how his fictional father fit into Pierce's ideas. "How do you know who will best benefit from these treatments?" Steve muttered. 

"Observation," Pierce said. "Close observations." 

Steve felt as if the tour could not be over too soon. Did Pierce have any idea how closely his words resembled those uttered by Zola on multiple occasions? 

"Could I," Steve choked, and cleared his throat. "Could I meet one of the men who, uh, you've helped?" 

"Of course," Pierce smiled. "I'll point out several in the common room." 

Steve followed Pierce back to the common room in a cold sweat. Pierce pointed out a man dully gazing out a window. 

"See that man?" Pierce said proudly. "He worked himself up into screaming rages, sometimes even convulsions. Now he's completely calm. And that man? In the throes of a night terror, he nearly strangled his wife. He voluntarily submitted to castration, and now sleeps easily." 

Steve couldn't help but turn away from Pierce in horror. 

"It sounds extreme," Pierce admitted, "but surgical excision often improves the human condition." 

Steve felt like he was in another universe, one where nothing he believed held true. Somehow, he managed to stay civil to Pierce. The empty husks of men sat unmoving in the room — empty eyed, without motivation. Others had faces lined with deep suffering, but seemed resolved to their fate. 

Steve felt nearly suffocated by horror, but managed to finish out the tour. Nothing had been hidden from him. It was all in plain sight, well known in the annals of medicine. Surgical excision of different kinds was a common practice at the Ohio Soldiers Home. It wasn't proof of any link to the Cleveland murders, but Steve instinctively felt the connection. 

He ached to get back to Natasha, to share what he'd seen with Bucky, Peggy Carter and Ness. 

He shook hands with Pierce one last time and left the Home at a brisk walk. He'd been gone for just two hours. 

Natasha saw in his face right away that he'd been affected and didn't question him in the car. Instead, she drove him directly back to Ness's office. 

Steve grimly relayed to the others what he'd seen. Ness was ashen, and Peggy looked appalled. 

"Natasha — how could you have forgotten these details?" Peggy demanded.

Natasha rubbed at her forehead with her hand. "it's, it's as though there's some kind of disconnect in my mind. I can see that Steve is terribly disturbed by what he saw, but I saw the same things and thought nothing of it."

Steve looked at the woman in disbelief. "How could you possibly have seen those men and not been affected?" 

A slight frown gathered between her fine brows. "Pierce is trustworthy. He cares about the inmates at the Home. He's only doing what's best for them." 

"Natasha — snap out of it!" Peggy said harshly. 

Natasha swung her gaze to Peggy, her hazel green eyes cloudy with confusion. 

"I still want to give him the money. Why do I still want to give him the money?" Natasha asked her old friend. 

Peggy stared at Natasha, unblinking and intense. "I don't know," Peggy retorted. "I certainly wouldn't." 

"But it's for the betterment of mankind," Natasha whispered. 

Every eye fastened on her, and she paled as she realized what she had said. "The betterment of mankind," Natasha said hoarsely, as heavy tears trembled and fell from her eyes. 

"My god," Ness said, reaching out, but thinking better of it.

Steve looked away as Peggy tried to console Natasha, wiping her tears with a hanky and hushing her as Natasha muttered to herself, shaking her head from time to time. 

Ness stood and led Steve to the door. "You'd better get back to Sergeant Barnes," Ness said. "He must be climbing the walls, wondering what you've learned." 

"What have I learned?" Steve asked. "What in God's name is going on here, Ness?" 

"Nothing in God's name, that's for certain," Ness said, and showed Steve out. 

Sharon blushed as Steve went by, but he hardly noticed her smile. He had to get back to Bucky, work over this new information with his friend.

He let himself into the room, ready to collapse on the bed and tell Bucky everything. 

The door swung open. The room was empty. 

Bucky was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These kinds of surgical procedures, unfortunately, were common in mental institutions in the midcentury.  
> My representation of the Ohio Soldier's Home is completely fictional. The location is tied into the Kingsbury Run Murders because it was where one suspect, Dr. Sweeney, lived out his days. I intend no disrespect; this portrayal is fiction, fabricated as part of the horror story. 
> 
> On a lighter note, Natasha drives a 1938 Jaguar SS100. Sweet!!


	12. Natasha's Ledgers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Peggy help Natasha delve into the records of her own past.

The winter of 1938 hit Cleveland early and hard.  The lake effect swept over the city, blanketing it with a damp chill that might have been a death sentence to Steve in his earlier circumstances.  But Steve was safe and warm, eating three square meals a day, sleeping in a quiet, draftless room, enjoying the benefit of every luxury.  
  
Bucky was gone, disappeared without a trace that late October day while Pierce had shown Steve around the Ohio Soldiers’ Home.  Ness put out an all points bulletin on Barnes, but nothing had been seen of the tall, handsome New York cop with dark hair, blue eyes and a rakish grin.  He had vanished once again from the streets of Cleveland as thoroughly as if he had never been there.  
  
Steve was beside himself with worry and anguish. Terrible things had been done to Bucky — horrible crimes had been committed in Cleveland.  Only time would tell when the next dismembered corpse turned up in the city.  So far, no bodies had come to light since August.  But the people of Cleveland still could not breathe freely.     
  
Steve left the rooming house where he and Bucky had stayed. There was no reason for him not to move into Natasha’s spacious mansion, where Peggy Carter already kept rooms. Mrs. Rushman had ordered a full-length portrait, and she threw lavish dinner parties in November and December, flaunting the oil sketches of herself that Steve completed in preparation for the portrait.  Steve was lauded amongst Cleveland society as the next Whistler, and without ever having completed an oil portrait outside his early training at art school, he had lined up commissions that would take several years to complete, if Natasha’s acquaintances held true to their requests.  
  
“Remarkable,” Howard Stark had smiled after a late December dinner, eyeing one full-length sketch that hung above Natasha’s mantel while Steve stood nervously by, nursing a crystal tumbler of grapefruit juice and sparkling water.  “Where’d you find him again, Natalie?”  
  
Over the mantel, Natasha looked down, clad in an emerald gown precisely the same color as her eyes.  The background was abstract, diffuse blots of shimmering color, but the details of Natasha’s face and her expression gripped the viewer even in the sketch.    
  
“Just blew into town like a tumbleweed,” Natasha laughed, the light sparkling laughter and vivacious smile that Steve had never seen anyone resist.  If Natasha had set her mind to it, Stark would certainly have been the next millionaire on her well-notched bedpost.  
  
Steve frowned at Natasha’s comparison but said nothing.  He had gained respect and status as an artist overnight, simply because Natasha had contracted him to paint her portrait. Natasha was good at keeping his cover intact while he helped Peggy with her investigations, and he could swallow his pride at her phrasing.    
  
“Add my name to that list of clients, Rogers,” Stark said.    
  
“Thanks, I’ll do that,” Steve answered, meeting Stark’s eye.    
  
“Miss Carter!” Stark said, as Peggy came into the room.  She’d missed dinner, working late again with Ness.  “So good to see you.  Keeping Cleveland safe, I hear?”  
  
“Doing our best,” Peggy said drily, smiling sweetly while the various high-society couples of Cleveland looked her over.  Peggy’s English pedigree was better than any of theirs; though her family weren’t wealthy, they were exceedingly well-bred.  Everyone in town had learned better than to verbally spar with Mrs. Rushman’s old school chum and long-term house guest.    
  
“Do you like fondue?” Stark asked, with a sly look Steve didn’t like.    
  
“What’s not to like about long, pointy forks and open flames on the dining room table?” Peggy answered, daintily skewering a bit of bread as she spoke.    
  
Everything Peggy did was somehow veiled in threat.  Steve didn’t know how she did it, but he liked it.  
  
Stark shook his head, as Peggy kept him on his toes. Steve tried to remember the names of the couples milling around Natasha’s grand dining room. The Keysers had already asked to be added to his roster of clients, after Natasha’s portrait was finished.  The Marshalls wanted a portrait of their daughter with her pony, which made Steve wince even as he agreed to add them to his calendar. He had never dreamed of becoming a portraitist; he was much more interested in the modern landscapes of city life, such as the photographs Margaret Bourke-White had been taking around Stark’s Cleveland mills.  The combination of architecture and machinery, the living steel and fire that Bourke-White captured in her stunning, gelatin silver images — he wanted to incorporate that fire and movement into his portraits, and he felt he’d begun to capture a good likeness of Natasha, not just her face, but the energy that surrounded her.  
  
Of course, the real work Steve had been doing with Natasha and Peggy was not about the portrait.  
  
Since Natasha’s stunning realization in Ness’s office the day Bucky vanished, she had opened the books of her life to Peggy and Steve.  Natasha had kept a daily journal since her father’s death in Geneva in 1918, and Peggy was reading it closely, looking for inconsistencies, while Steve pored over the ledgers of her fortunes, which had grown vast over the course of her four marriages.     
  
Natasha's father was a minor prince, a distant relative of the Russian royals who’d been famously massacred.  Living in Paris like many of his social class, he fell in love with a beautiful and talented Russian ballerina.  Natasha was born in 1910 shortly after they moved to Geneva, but tragically, her mother did not survive her birth.  Natasha was raised primarily by governesses, and devoted herself to ballet from a very young age. Her father died in the flu epidemic when she was only a child, and from then on she attended boarding school in England, where she met Peggy.    
  
The inconsistencies in Natasha’s journals began to creep in when Natasha was a young woman, lapses in memory that she herself had noticed.  She went to Budapest for a year to work with the famous hypnotist Ivan Ivchenko. Just after finishing her schooling, Natasha married industrialist Vasily Karpov.    
  
“Vasily is a darling.  One would never suspect the gentle heart he hides behind his stern exterior.  Vasily is so intelligent, so wise.  I feel privileged to place my life into his hands at such a young age.  I am so fortunate, becoming the wife of such a man!”  Peggy frowned at Natasha’s journal entry — it seemed out of character for the cool, witty girl she’d always known.  Vasily died in a car crash a little over a year after their marriage, leaving his entire fortune to Natasha.    
  
Natasha’s charitable endeavors were no secret and were well-marked in her ledgers.  After Karpov’s death, Natasha made significant donations to Ivan Ivchenko, Aleksander Lukin, and Abraham Erskine.  Natasha had been contributing to Ivchenko’s Mesmerists Benevolent Society since her initial memory treatments, but her contributions ballooned as her fortunes improved. Lukin turned out to be a colleague of Ivchenko, running a utopian think tank in Prague. The third recipient of Natasha’s money was a scientist dedicated to lengthening the human lifespan.  He was now working in New York, though Natasha’s monetary support had ceased before he left Europe.  
  
Shortly after Karpov’s death, Natasha married again.  Her second husband was a German noble who still retained financial holdings around Europe even after the first world war.  He fell to his death while hiking in the Alps during their honeymoon, while Natasha was holed up in a nearby schloss with a headache.  Three years later, Natasha married a distant cousin of Peggy’s, William Falsworth, who was stabbed to death by a robber on the streets of London.  Each of these marriages resulted in a sizable increase in Natasha’s fortune, and even though the deaths had nothing to do with Natasha, she was dubbed the Black Widow.    
  
Natasha married her latest husband two years ago, railroad and shipping magnate Henry Rushman.    
  
“Life with Henry is a whirlwind of fun — dances, soirees, travel — and his philanthropic generosity knows no bounds.  I have known many generous and good hearted men, but Henry is the best of them!  What I have done to deserve such great good fortune I will never understand.”  
  
Only a month after that entry,  Rushman was dead of heart failure, collapsing in the stands during an air show featuring the new aeroplanes his company had invested in.    
  
In her diaries, Natasha gushed over the men she had married, but in person, she could only muster slight enthusiasm.  “Henry was nice,” she said.  “He was a gentleman.  He was always very gracious to me.  Just like William — of course I would never expect anything less than perfect breeding from any cousin of Peggy’s, but I always felt that he held me in very high esteem.”  
  
“Did you love them?” Peggy asked, watching Natasha closely.  
  
“Yes, of course,” Natasha said, but the pain of loss was not evident in her face.  
  
Steve shook his head.  “This doesn’t add up, Natasha. Who introduced you to Karpov?”  
  
Natasha shook her head.  “Why, nobody.  We met in Budapest, at a grand ball.”  
  
“Why were you at a grand ball — who invited you?”  Peggy asked.  
  
“I am a Romanov, you know,” Natasha answered with a smile, “even if my mother was only a dancer.  Not many of us left since the revolution.  Invitations pour in every day.”  
  
Steve had seen Natasha’s mail — she wasn’t exaggerating.    
  
“So, you met Karpov at a ball in Budapest,” Peggy said.  “Strucker?”  
  
“After I emerged from mourning Vasily, I met him during waltz season in Vienna.” Steve did not find Natasha to be a cold person.  In daily life, she was pleasant, if a little reserved, but always with the spark of engagement in her eyes.  That spark didn’t quite fan to a flame when she spoke about her former husbands.  
  
“And cousin Will?” Peggy pursued.  
  
“In London, at a charity ball.”  
  
Peggy’s eyes flashed.  “What charity?”  
  
“Ivchenko’s, the Mesmerists Benevolent Society.”  
  
Steve saw what Peggy was getting at.  “Natasha, what does Dr. Ivchenko actually do?”  
  
Natasha smiled, a small, peaceful smile. “He is devoted to the removal of pain and stress from human existence. When I first began to have these memory lapses, it worried me greatly.  Dr. Ivchenko made me feel so much better.  I’ve always felt his work has been of huge benefit to mankind.”  
  
Peggy and Steve darted a glance at one another.  
  
“Darling, are you saying that Ivchenko never did anything to reduce your memory lapses — he only made you care less about them?”  
  
Natasha laughed at Peggy’s question.  “It sounds silly when you put it that way!”  
  
Steve frowned at Natasha’s reaction, which seemed inappropriate.  “How would you describe him?” Steve asked.  
  
“He’s such a dear old man,” Natasha said, a happy smile on her face.  “So kind, always so gentle and caring.  The world is a much better place because he is in it.”  
  
Peggy looked at Steve, and Steve looked back.    
  
“So how did you meet Rushman?” Steve asked.  
  
“At one of Howard’s parties in New York,” Natasha said.  
  
“A charity ball?” Peggy asked.  
  
“Yes,” Natasha said.  “Howard knows a lot of wealthy people.  I was invited because of my history of philanthropy.  Henry took note of me right away and we danced almost every dance that evening together.”  
  
“And Ivchenko had nothing to do with it?”  Peggy said.    
  
“Well, now that you mention it, he was there,” Natasha said.    
  
“He was?” Peggy said.    
  
“Yes.  He often turns up at these things. Dr. Ivchenko is such a wonderful man.  Everyone wants to know him.”  
  
“Was he there at the ball in London when you met Will?” Peggy said.  
  
“Yes,” Natasha said, smiling.  “I’m always so happy to see him.”  
  
“He’s there every time, isn’t he?” Peggy demanded, her dark eyes flashing.  
  
“Every time what?” Natasha said.  
  
“Every time you meet someone you’ll later marry,” Steve pointed out.  
  
“Hm.  Now that you point it out, that’s true.  What an odd coincidence!” Natasha laughed.  
  
“Have you ever met Aleksander Lukin or Abraham Erskine?” Steve asked.  
  
“No,” Natasha said.  
  
“Yet you’ve given them thousands of dollars.  What about Johann Schmidt?”  
  
“No,” Natasha said.  “But I feel sure their charities are worthwhile.”  
  
“Why?” Steve demanded.    
  
“They’re for the betterment of mankind,” Natasha stated vacantly.  She didn’t even notice what she’d just said, blinking at Peggy and Steve in puzzlement as they stared at her.    
  
“Natasha,” Steve said, “do you realize that you’ve already donated money both to Alexander Pierce at the Ohio Soldiers’ Home, and to Lernaean Laboratories?”  
  
Natasha frowned. “I don’t recall.  That’s why I keep such careful records, because my memory isn’t reliable.”  
  
“We’ll help you keep better track from now on,” Peggy said.    
  
Natasha looked worried for the first time.  “Are you sure that’s wise?”  
  
“Why?” Steve asked.  
  
“I’m not sure,” Natasha frowned.  “It just seems to me that my money has gone to worthy causes.  I wouldn’t want anyone to suffer if I were to withdraw support.”  
  
Peggy touched Natasha on the arm.  “I’m sure you’ll still be able to help people,” Peggy reassured her friend.    
  
“I hope so,” Natasha said, and then shook her head, seeming to dismiss the conversation from her mind.  
  
Natasha sat at her desk every morning, answering correspondence and paying bills.  Peggy began to monitor her mail before it left the house, and was shocked to find that only a few days after their conversation, Natasha had written a check for another thousand dollars to Ivchenko’s foundation.  Peggy intercepted the check and showed it to Steve.  Sure enough, the check was recorded in the ledger: “MBS — Buda.”  
  
“Do you think we can trust her?” Steve asked Peggy behind closed doors.  
  
“I’ve known her my whole life — she’s one of my closest friends,” Peggy avowed.  
  
Steve sighed, frustrated.  “She doesn’t remember everything she does — and even when she remembers, her motives seem compromised.  Ivchenko is somehow to blame.  Do you think a mesmerist like him could control someone like Natasha?”  
  
Peggy frowned.  “I’ve never thought much of mesmerism, and Natasha has a will of iron.  She’s not under anyone’s control.  But I think it’s clear that he is at least influencing her.”  
  
“This recent check worries me the most.  Even knowing all she knows now, she still gives money to Ivchenko?”  
  
Peggy and Steve decided not to waste time arguing — they took the check directly to Natasha and asked her why she had written it.    
  
“I don’t know,” she said, tears in her eyes.  “I don’t even remember writing it — and it was just this morning!” Natasha tore the check in two and threw it away.    
  
“You mustn’t trust me any more,” she said, wiping her eyes.  “Don’t tell me any more about what Ness is planning.”  
  
Peggy pressed her lips together.  She’d been keeping Ness’s activities secret from Natasha for weeks.    
  
“And Steve, I want you to watch me like a hawk. I’ll ask Barton to report my comings and goings to both of you. Who knows what I’m doing that I don’t even know about!”  
  
“I’m sure that’s not the case,” Steve said, unconvincingly, but secretly glad that Natasha’s butler would be helping them monitor her.  
  
Over the next few days, Peggy reread the diaries, focusing on what Natasha had done since coming to the United States.  Her journal entries about Henry Rushman were thrilling, in direct contrast to her lackluster answers when they asked her about him: a good man and a hard worker, conscientious about the way he ran his companies.    
  
Natasha’s journal entries were methodical and businesslike after Rushman’s unexpected death.  She made sure his companies continued on under the capable leaders he had chosen.  Then Peggy saw it.  
  
“Henry’s house in Cleveland is divine.  So well appointed, and convenient to the work.  Great things happening in Cleveland: the science of forensics moving forward by leaps and bounds.  Must make friends with Eliot Ness.”  
  
Peggy read the entry aloud to Natasha and Steve.  Natasha nodded.  
  
“What does that mean, ‘the work’?” Peggy asked.    
  
“I don’t know,” Natasha said.    
  
“Is forensics something you know much about?” Steve asked.  
  
“No,” Natasha said.  “But you must admit, anyone would be excited at the idea of meeting Eliot Ness.”  
  
Steve flipped through the ledgers, and found the dates that matched up with Natasha’s move to Cleveland.  “It wasn’t long before you arrived in Cleveland that you began donating to Pierce and Zola.”  
  
Natasha frowned.  The evidence of her actions disturbed her, since she couldn’t remember or explain them very well.  
  
“Erskine,” Peggy mused.  “And Schmidt.”  
  
“Yes?” Natasha responded.    
  
“You donated to them as well, but we don’t know much about them. I’ve found a few articles that mention Schmidt— he seems primarily interested in the recovery of legendary artifacts, remnants of ancient civilizations that he believes have powers beyond our comprehension.”  
  
Steve rolled his eyes.  Natasha nodded.    
  
“Erskine, though, has published in several reputable medical and scientific journals since coming to the U. S.  He seems to be working on strengthening the human immune system,  and finding out ways the body can repair itself and grow stronger.”  
  
“These men are all interested in the same sorts of things,” Natasha pointed out.  “They’re trying to improve the human condition.”  
  
“That’s what they claim,” Steve said.  “But I know firsthand that Zola and Pierce can’t be trusted.  Who knows what Schmidt might be up to?”  
  
“But Erskine is on the up and up,” Natasha said.  “Don’t you think? You’ve read the articles, Peggy.  Surely I was right at least in supporting his work?”  
  
Peggy breathed out. “I have read the articles, but I’m no scientist.  His initial work has been in the new field of antibiotics, using a new serum called penicillin to help people recover from infections. It’s made out of bread mold, but its curative power is impressive.”  
  
“Wow,” Steve said.  “I don’t actually know what Zola was trying.  I never saw any bread mold.”  
  
“Erskine is also working with extracts that are distilled from the human body.”  
  
“Nasty!” Steve couldn’t help but exclaim.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Peggy laughed, wrinkling her nose.  “I mean, people donate a small quantity of blood, and he extracts these compounds from the blood.  He feels that ultimately, the human body has the power to cure itself of every ill, and that human extracts will eventually be the source of every panacea.”  
  
Steve gritted his teeth.  “Madam Curie no doubt thought that her x-rays would cure all, till they killed her.”  
  
“We should contact Professor Erskine,” Natasha said suddenly, “invite him here. Ask him about his research — about Schmidt and the others.”  
  
Peggy searched Natasha’s face.  “Are you sure?”  
  
“No!” Natasha exclaimed.  “But — I used to send him money.  Now, I don’t.  Why? I have no idea. But —  it seems to me that he is part of this, this whole thing.  Maybe he is one good man in a den of vipers.  If I were to invite him here, with the promise of renewing funding, wouldn’t that be a good plan?”  
  
Peggy nodded slowly. “You funded him before, why not again?”  
  
Steve felt a niggle of doubt.  “But — if we think Natasha’s donations are not her own idea, won’t it make Ivchenko and his friends curious when she donates of her own accord?”  
  
“So?” Natasha said, shrugging.  “It’s my money.”  
  
Peggy looked proud of her friend.  “I won’t try to mislead you, Natasha.  Money is the most powerful incentive to crime.  You’ve been married four times, and you have four deceased husbands.  Can we really go on believing that their deaths were all accidental?”  
  
Natasha shivered, and her face went blank.  “I mourned him. I loved my husband. I mourned him,” she whispered.  She shuddered again, and then looked up.    
  
“What were you saying?” she asked.    
  
Steve and Peggy traded glances.  “We’re thinking of inviting Erskine here, to learn more about his work,” Steve reminded Natasha.  
  
She smiled widely. “Excellent idea!”   Natasha clapped her hands and stood up, ringing for her butler.    
  
“Barton, bring extra tea and cakes with lunch,” she ordered.  
  
“Certainly, ma’am,” Barton answered, bowing away.  
  
“But it’s not time for tea,” Peggy said.  
  
“Inviting a prominent scientist to one’s home is thirsty work!” Natasha said, her old vivaciousness restored in the absence of disturbing questions.    
  
Steve only hoped they weren’t making a terrible mistake.    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	13. Erskine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erskine arrives on Boxing Day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you will enjoy this chapter. Sorry it's taken so long! The next chapter is liable to be pretty crazy. This story is sprawling and crazy, and I decided to just go with it. :)

  
Peggy, Steve and Natasha were all used to being at loose ends over the holidays, but now, they rejoiced to find themselves a tiny group of kindred souls.  Steve’s only relative in the U.S. had been his mother, until she passed away.  Peggy’s brother and mother still lived in England, where they were worried about Germany’s increasingly aggressive rhetoric, and their actions against the Jews.  Natasha, a four-time widow, was an orphan and had no other close family; Peggy was her best and oldest friend.   The three of them grew close as they talked late night after night, reminiscing about Natasha’s school days with Peggy and swapping stories with Steve.  
  
“You’ve never seen her dance,” Peggy realized one evening as the three of them sat around a low, crackling fire.  
  
“No,” Steve said.    
  
“That will certainly have to be remedied!” Peggy exclaimed.  “Natasha is an exquisite dancer.”  
  
Natasha lowered her chin demurely and said nothing.  
  
“You keep up your ballet?” Steve prompted.    
  
“Of course,” Natasha said.  “I began dancing at the age of two and have never dreamed of skipping even one day of practice.  I dance for at least an hour every morning, usually more.”  
  
“I would love to watch you dance sometime— if that’s okay,” Steve said.    
  
Natasha shrugged. “I’m a little too big,” she said, “too muscular.  My teacher told me that my mother’s body was closer to perfection, but at least I inherited her musicality and capability for technical excellence.”  
  
Steve frowned as Natasha dispassionately criticized herself.  He was always defensive about his stature and his impaired physical strength.  To hear such a stunning woman as Natasha denigrate herself rubbed him the wrong way.    
  
“I used to love to watch Bucky dance,” Steve mused.  
  
“What?” Peggy said.    
  
“What?” Steve said.  
  
“When did you ever see Barnes dance?”  
  
“I didn’t,” Steve said.  
  
“What did you just say?” Peggy said.  
  
“Nothing,” Steve said.  
  
Peggy fixed him with her bright, piercing eyes. “You said, ‘I used to love to watch Bucky dance.’  Why did you say that?”  
  
Steve shook his head.  He remembered the fight between Bucky and Rumlow, the ferocity and speed of Bucky’s moves.  “I don’t know.  I never, of course, I never saw him dance.”  
  
Peggy squinted at him.  
  
Natasha lay her hand on Steve’s arm with compassion.  “I hate to say this, Steve, but how can you be sure?”    
  
Steve felt a shudder run through his body.  “I  — I …  what do you mean?”  
  
“What if you knew Barnes, and somehow, someone made you forget?” Natasha said mildly.    
  
“That’s absurd!  How could I know Bucky, and then forget him!  I’d remember him, surely, when we met again?”  
  
“Did you ever ask yourself why you grew so loyal to him so quickly?”  
  
Steve tried not to blush.  He remembered Bucky’s kisses from the first night they met.  Steve had fallen hard, instantly, for the handsome, tormented stranger.  Nothing more.  
  
Still, he had to be honest.  “Bucky said several times that he thought he might’ve known me.  But.  I just can’t believe I’d ever forget someone like Bucky.”  
  
“Bucky forgot everything— even the very existence of his beloved little sister.”  
  
Steve shook his head.  “I can’t imagine that I ever knew Bucky and just forgot him, just like that.”  
  
“Think of all I’ve forgotten, Steve,” Natasha said quietly, “all that Bucky forgot.  What makes you so special?” Steve bristled with stubbornness, but he couldn’t take offense at Natasha’s challenging words when her green eyes were so soft and caring.  
  
Peggy tapped her pen impatiently on the table.  “The mesmerists are behind this. The mystical power of hypnosis is no longer taken seriously, but what if Ivchenko and his comrades know some secret that others do not?”  
  
“Ivchenko,” Natasha smiled, “that good old man.”  
  
Peggy grabbed her friend’s hand and squeezed lightly.  “You can’t trust your memories of him, darling, you know you can’t.”  
  
Natasha nodded, frowning.  “I know that when you remind me, but whenever I hear his name, such a feeling of peace flows through me.  You can’t imagine.”  
  
“Nothing like that happens to me,” Steve said, grimacing.  
  
“Have you ever felt that kind of peace?” Peggy asked with a smile.  The others often teasingly chided Steve for his brusque personality.  
  
Steve nodded.  “I feel it when I’m working,” Steve avowed.  He didn’t mention the amazing feelings that always swept over him when Bucky was near.   Those feelings were private, for Bucky and him alone.  
  
On Christmas eve, Natasha, Steve and Peggy celebrated with an enormous dinner, a roast goose of course, but much more besides.  The staff were all invited to take the extras home to their families.  Steve marveled at the beautiful tree in Natasha’s foyer, hung with gilded ornaments including sparkling glass reproductions of Faberge eggs — the originals having been given as Easter presents by her distant cousins, the deceased Romanov czars.     
  
Steve drew miniatures of Peggy and Natasha and had them fitted into silver lockets for the best friends.  The women adored their gifts.  Natasha presented Steve with a camera like the one Margaret Bourke-White used, and gave Peggy a beautiful jeweled  bracelet.  At Peggy’s gasp, Steve understood that the bracelet’s sparkling gems were genuine.  Natasha surrounded herself with the most exquisite objects and saw no reason why Peggy shouldn’t share in her good fortune.  Peggy offered Natasha and Steve monogrammed leather notebooks — Natasha for her journal, and Steve for sketches.    
  
Professor Erskine arrived on Boxing Day. Steve was beside himself with anticipation.  Time had slowed to a crawl as Bucky’s absence stretched from days to weeks to months.  Peggy and Steve had been back and forth through all of Natasha’s papers.  Ness had sent policeman all over the city, into every establishment Bucky had ever been known to frequent, to no avail.  Nothing was heard of him.  The one good thing was that no more bodies had turned up.  
  
Barton hurried around the black Chevrolet to open the door and shelter Professor Erskine under a massive umbrella.  A steady, cold rain, not quite cold enough to turn to snow, had descended upon Cleveland.  Curious to get his first glimpse of Erskine, Steve instead could only see the round, black dome of Barton's umbrella.   
  
Barton led Erskine indoors, and Steve could almost picture Barton freeing the professor of his coat and offering him tea, privately ringing from the kitchen to let Natasha know the professor had arrived.  Natasha kept a very small staff for such a rich woman, primarily a house maid, a full time chef with two supporting cooks, two gardeners, and Barton, who kept a sharp eye on things around the house, keeping everything up to a standard fit for a Romanov.  
  
Presumably Erskine was told to make himself comfortable, while Barton returned to the Chevrolet under a heavy raincoat, and carried Erskine's steamer trunk inside.   
  
Ostensibly, Steve was painting. The upstairs salon had been converted into a studio where he worked on sketches and canvases.  There was no reason for him to be present at Natasha's first meeting with Erskine; he would have to wait until supper, when Peggy would appear and the three of them could engage Erskine in serious conversation, hopefully without seeming too rude.    
  
Steve was usually able to sink deep into his work when he was painting, but with Erskine in the house, his concentration was shot.  He had made great progress with the full-scale portrait of Natasha, achieving scintillating effects with her gown, her brilliant red hair, the color of her eyes, and the modernist shapes and patterns of the background, but he covered the portrait early for the day, not wanting to risk marring the image in his distraction.   
  
He turned to his sketchbook.  Character studies of Natasha's face in different moods — her laughter, her serious look, her flash of determination — filled most of the book, along with quicker sketches of Peggy and Ness, and even a few of the staff — the bright and cheerful house maid, Angie, always singing at her work; the determined and talented sous-chef, Lorraine.  Steve's heart ached as he leafed past images of Bucky.  It had been weeks, with no word.  Ness's searches had turned up nothing.  Where was Bucky now? Where had he gone? Steve could only believe that Bucky had been taken by force — his belongings had been left untouched in their room.  Pierce must have been behind the abduction. Ness had invited Pierce to his home for dinner, where Pierce had chatted amiably about current events, sympathized with seeming sincerity about the failure to apprehend the Mad Butcher, and even made Mrs. Ness smile once or twice, drawing her from her melancholy into conversation.   
  
"Edna had a lovely evening," Ness reported to Peggy with a grim smile, as he threw back his second Scotch with lunch.  Ever since Bucky's abduction, Ness had been drinking — a cruel twist of irony for a man famous for shutting down bootleggers.  Peggy could not say that she had seen Ness drunk, but his well-known sense of drive and perseverance seemed to have gone slack.   
  
The whole thing with Pierce made Steve furious.  He just knew, in his heart, that Pierce had taken Bucky, and was laughing at them all.  Perhaps he was even responsible for the behavior of the disturbed doctor, Sweeney, who had phoned Ness several times to laugh eerily down the line, hanging up without identifying himself.  Ness had traced the call to Sweeney, but the phone calls in themselves were not illegal. The impotence of his situation really got to Ness, in a way that nothing in his prior career had prepared him for.  Steve very deeply understood how Ness felt.  Steve was not a trained detective.  He certainly could not find Bucky if the entire Cleveland police force could not.  Peggy and Ness had both insisted that Steve not go about alone in Cleveland, because they feared that he too would disappear.  Natasha had shrugged, arguing that Steve was a grown man and should do as he wished — and strangely enough, it was Natasha who convinced Steve that getting grabbed himself would be no help to Bucky.  
  
So he stayed in, worked on paintings, socialized with Natasha’s acquaintances, trotted out like a dancing monkey for Cleveland’s upper set.  Laughter, gaiety, song and dance —Natasha’s life had everything Steve’s impoverished youth had lacked, but somehow it felt like just as much work.    
  
Now Steve couldn’t wait for dinner to arrive.  He hurried back to his room, washed up in one of Natasha’s luxurious modern bathrooms, dressed carefully, and tried not to fidget horribly until Barton rang the bell to announce cocktails in the grand drawing room.    
  
Burning with curiosity, Steve wondered if his heightened emotions showed on his face as Natasha introduced him to Erskine.  Perhaps Erskine was working towards the perfection of mankind, but he was no taller than Steve, wore thick, round glasses, had a marked stoop to his shoulders, and was balding.  Erskine’s humble appearance somehow made Steve feel better right away.  
  
“Steven Rogers,” Erskine pronounced, with a noticeable German accent.  “The talented artist.  I’m very glad to meet you.”  
  
“Thank you, Dr. Erskine,” Steve answered, shaking the professor’s hand.  “It’s wonderful that you could come all this way to meet with Mrs. Rushman.”  
  
“Natasha, please,” Natasha hastened to say.  “Let’s all be friends here.”  
  
“Certainly,” Erskine said.    
  
Peggy, for once, was already back from Ness’s office.  “Peggy Carter,” she said, businesslike but stunning in her favorite red dress.  “I’m very pleased to meet you.  I’ve read several of your articles.”  
  
“Really?” Erskine asked.  “Pardon me, my dear, but you must have found them dreadfully dull, if not impenetrable.”  
  
“Not at all,” Peggy replied, her bright eyes flashing.  “I think I followed most of it.  I’m so interested in your ideas that the human body is capable of producing a serum that could perfect human existence.”  
  
Steve was amazed at how easily Peggy stayed cool as a cucumber, even as she worked the key phrase into her conversation with Erskine.  
  
“Not a single serum, but many,” Erskine said.  “I believe I have unlocked the formula for several of the basic processes of development — for example, a serum that enables a man to grow strong at an accelerated rate, and another, that enables the body to heal itself.  I also have rudimentary treatments that strengthen the bones, and reinforce immunity — among other things.”  
  
“Penicillin?” Peggy asked.  
  
Erskine smiled.  “Yes, in part; but of course, the human body has always been able to fight off infections on its own — most of the time. These anti-inflammatory and anti-invasive agents are distilled into a cure, as I believe, for almost every disease.”  
  
“Why isn’t your work more well known, then?” Steve said, his tone not altogether even.  “So many lives could be saved!”  
  
Erskine removed his glasses and polished them thoughtfully.  “My colleagues in Europe had certain theories about who deserved to live — who should reap the benefits of my research — and who should be left to fend for themselves.  As you might guess, they found themselves worthy and condemned those they were prejudiced against.  I came to America hoping to find a more democratic society.”  
  
“Have you found it?” Natasha asked.  Steve was always amazed at how Natasha’s beauty radiated from her face when she engaged in conversation.  Erskine actually had to blink and swallow before he could answer.    
  
“Ahem, well, ah, yes and no, wouldn’t you say?” He took a sip of his schnapps to fortify himself.  “You have contributed funds to my work in the past, but you are a princess from the royal line of the Romanovs.  Wouldn’t you want to be first in line to reap the bounty of your investments?”  
  
“No,” Natasha shrugged.  “I have no desire to live forever.  I have seen the old, pining for the ways of their youth, as modern times seethe to a turmoil around them.  Long life, in my opinion, would be a curse past a certain point.”  
  
“Interesting point of view,” Erskine replied.  “Such wisdom from one so young. Do both of you agree?”  
  
Peggy looked thoughtful, and didn’t answer, so Steve spoke up.    
  
“I don’t believe that eternal life should be the goal,” he said.  “But we should do everything in our power to improve the health and well-being of every human being.”  
  
“How can you decide who is to receive such treatment, though?” Erskine said.  
  
“Perhaps initially it could be by lot,” Steve suggested.    
  
“Not sold to the highest bidder?” Erskine asked.    
  
“Of course I’d love for Natasha to remain as young and beautiful forever as she is now,” Steve said, “and she could certainly afford it — but setting a monetary price on a healthy life seems wrong to me.”  
  
“Perhaps a test of merit,” Peggy mused.  “Perhaps, those who wish to receive the serum could somehow prove the goodness of their hearts. Only the very best would earn long life.”  
  
The friends fell quiet, thinking it over.    
  
“I’d like to try a thought experiment,” Erskine said.  “Close your eyes and point to the one among us who should receive the serum.  No peeking!  And of course, you may point to yourself.”  
  
Steve thought hard.  He loved Natasha and Peggy as friends, and of course he had a healthy dose of self-interest, but he felt that Erskine, as a scientist whose work might greatly improve the well-being of all humanity, should be the one to live longest.  He pointed at Erskine, with his eyes closed.    
  
“Aha,” Erskine said.  “You may open your eyes.”  
  
Peggy and Natasha were both pointing at Steve.  “What? No!  That’s crazy!” Steve exclaimed.  “Why should I live longest? Clearly, the gifted scientist is of greatest value to the human race.”  
  
Natasha smiled softly. “Steve, you’re not just a talented artist — you’re a very decent person.  You have the most unerring moral compass of anyone I’ve ever met.”  
  
“I agree,” Peggy said.  “I’ve worked with many talented men, but you are the best of them.  Always fair, always to the point, selfless to a fault.”  
  
“But I’ve never done anything much,” Steve protested.    
  
“If that were true, you wouldn’t even be sitting here,” Peggy said.    
  
Steve was somewhat astonished by his friends’ admiration.  The path that had led to Natasha’s door, in Steve’s opinion, had featured very few vexed decisions.  He didn’t feel brave or special for making the choices he had.    
  
Erskine was watching him closely.    
  
Steve shrugged.  “I still think it should be the great scientist.”  
  
“That’s very kind of you,” Erskine said wryly.  “So, then, when would you like to get started?”  
  
“What?” Steve said.  Peggy and Natasha looked at Erskine sharply.    
  
“Would tomorrow be too soon? Or, is there a deadline for your magnificent painting that should not be missed?”  
  
“What?” Steve repeated.  
  
“You mean to say,” Peggy began, “that you could administer such treatments to someone right now?”  
  
“Yes,” Erskine acknowledged.  “But the procedure is not without risk. Perhaps you’ve heard of my colleague, Johann Schmidt? He subjected himself to the process, and the resulting power coursing through his body deranged him utterly.”  
  
“How do you know that wouldn’t happen to me?” Steve demanded.    
  
“I don’t,” Erskine said, shrugging and laughing a little.  “Call it a hunch.”  
  
Steve frowned.  “I don’t want to go mad.”  
  
“I don’t think you will,” Erskine opined.  “Schmidt was always a little mad, I think.  Maybe more than a little.  I just didn’t know the extent of his madness in time.”  
  
Steve frowned again, more deeply. “Surely there must be someone else who deserves it more than me.” He couldn’t help but think of his mother, coughing herself to death, working up until the moment she was diagnosed and quarantined.    
  
“That sentiment in itself is part of the justification for choosing you,“ Peggy laughed.    
  
Steve continued to frown, but Peggy and Natasha were pleased with Erskine’s decision.  
  
“I hope you are able to clear some time on your calendar,” Erskine added as they went in to dinner.    
  
“My portrait of Natasha is almost finished,” Steve said.  “She’s kind of my boss right now.”  
  
“His calendar is perfectly empty,” Natasha said lightly.    
  
“So be it,” Erskine said.    
  
The treatments would begin without delay the following morning.  


	14. the procedure begins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long! Real life is pushing me around.

Steve slept fitfully after the dinner with Erskine, his mind racing and spinning with possibilities.   
  
Would Erskine’s procedure be painful? How long would it take? Which of Steve’s many conditions could Erskine cure? Maybe he could cure the asthma? Maybe his treatments would help Steve’s poor digestion, cure his ulcers, ameliorate his anemia? Could it cure his mild but painful scoliosis? Could it, somehow, make him grow strong as the Doctor suggested?   
  
Steve’s somnolent brain went into overdrive, trying to imagine what it would be like to see the full spectrum of colors that everyone else could supposedly see, the full richness of the gradations between red and brown that he could not really detect; the brilliance of green that people spoke of that Steve could only perceive in shades from lighter to darker.  He tried to remember the world before rheumatic fever had damaged his heart, the energy he’d had as a young boy.  It was so long ago, he couldn’t imagine it.  He tried to remember what it was like when he’d had full hearing in both ears, before his constant sinus infections and bouts with strep had taken their toll.  How many of these conditions would Dr. Erskine’s procedures address — all of them? Would they go even farther?   
  
Would Steve become a perfected version of himself  — or something more? Dr. Erskine had mentioned how Schmidt had been driven mad by the process.  Had the attempt to make Schmidt perfect actually made him into some kind of monster? In that case, perhaps it was better that Steve was starting so far beneath normal expectations.    If he could reach the level of health that the average person enjoyed, Steve told himself that he would be satisfied.    
  
But Steve had never been a man who was easily satisfied.  He drove himself to the limit of his curtailed abilities.  He had to admit to himself that he couldn’t help imagining himself as a perfected human being — maybe something more than human — but he swore that he would not be driven mad by power as Schmidt had been.  How could he swear to something like that in complete ignorance of what lay ahead? Maybe being freed from illnesses and the limitations of his body would change who he was inside.  Steve tossed and turned and worried the night away.    
  
As dawn began to lighten the sky outside his windows, Steve came to a conclusion.  He might change inside, but his friends would not change.  Even though he hadn’t known Peggy and Natasha for long, the friendship they had offered Steve had been forged in the refining fire of difficult times.  Steve knew that regardless of how he might change inside, Peggy’s exacting standards would never change, and he could always measure himself according to the look of approbation in her eyes. In an odd way, Natasha was almost the opposite of Peggy. She knew from personal experience how fragile human life could be, how easily the ones she loved could be taken away. Natasha knew that people were bad and few could be trusted, but despite those facts she was determined to love without reservation. Her open and generous heart found something in everyone to love, and Steve swore he would live up to her trust and devotion.    
  
When a decent hour finally arrived, Steve staggered downstairs, trying to shake off his bleariness.  
Natasha’s already streamlined household staff had been given liberal leave for a few days until the end of the month, when Natasha would host her New Year’s Eve party.  Even Barton had gone to spend some time with his family.  Steve found Angie, the housemaid, setting out the coffee.    
  
“Good morning, Angie,” he greeted her, stifling a yawn.  
  
Angie smiled her bright, shy smile.  “Good morning, sir,” she answered, with a little bob of her knee.   
  
Steve shook his head with a chuckle.  “You gotta know by now, I’m no sir, I’m just Steve.”   
  
Angie grinned.  “Well, you know, a housemaid is s’posed to be a little mouse, sweeping up crumbs, and neither being seen nor heard.  But while I’m filling in for Barton while he goes to visit his sister and her kids, I oughta take the opportunity to practice my front of house manners.”   
  
Angie wasn’t a little mouse at all.  She sang and danced her way through the chores around Natasha’s mansion every moment of the day; Steve was certain her bubbly personality was why Natasha kept her on.  
  
Steve grinned back at her.  “Well, I guess you can practice on me, then; I won’t get sore if you mess up.”   
  
“Ain’t you swell,” Angie said, smiling widely at Steve.  “Sir,” she added saucily.  
  
Steve put on his best upper crust airs. “Well then, miss, this morning I’d like a bowl of oatmeal with apples and raisins, and a generous side of bacon.”    
  
“Sorry sir, no dice,” Angie returned.    
  
“Huh?” Steve said.  “That’s what I have every morning.  Who’s running the kitchen anyway?”   
  
“It’s Lorraine, sir,” Angie said, “and she’s a whiz for sure, but the Professor already nixed your meal privileges.”   
  
“Aw,” Steve whined. He’d gone his whole life on meager fare, but in the past months he’d gotten used to the rich life.  A full kitchen staff providing three full meals, plus snacks, not to mention the parties, would do that to a guy.    
  
“But he said you can have your coffee, providing there’s no whiskey in it,” Angie said.    
  
“Whiskey for breakfast?” Steve laughed.   
  
“I know you Irish,” Angie said archly, then remembered herself.  “Ahem. Sir.”   
  
Steve just looked at Angie with eyebrows high.  “I think you’re gonna need more work on your front of house manners, Miss Martinelli,” he reprimanded.   
  
“Can it,” Angie said sunnily.  “I still got the Doc to butter up this morning.  And Miss Carter.”   
  
Angie’s face reminded Steve of the movies, when a dame would appear in soft focus.  That was how Angie looked when Peggy was in the picture.  He wasn’t sure whether Peggy noticed or not, so focused on her work as she was.  Steve wondered how he himself looked when he thought about Bucky.  His friends had never given him any dirty looks, so he supposed he must be in the clear.    
  
Steve made himself comfortable at the dining table, trying to sip his coffee slowly. It made him feel a little more awake, but it burned in his tender, empty stomach.     
  
Angie came out of the kitchen carrying a tray with a croissant, tea things and a tall glass of pale fruit juice.  Steve’s mouth watered at the buttery smell of the hot croissant.    
  
“Any of that for me?” Steve said plaintively as Angie bustled on by.   
  
“Mrs Rushman takes her breakfast in the orangerie,” Angie said primly, and vanished round the corner.    
  
Steve sat and waited for Dr. Erskine to show up.  Angie delivered the morning papers to the dining table, giving a little curtsey with her finger under her chin.  “If that will be all, sir?”  she said.   
  
Steve adopted an accent from the movies, saying “Quite so, miss, carry on.” Angie laughed and vanished back through the swinging doors.   
  
“Good morning, Steve,” Peggy said, striding into the dining room.    
  
Steve nodded good morning with a smile as Angie came out of the kitchen, bearing Peggy’s usual breakfast on a tray.  Peggy put away toast, beans, eggs and sausages in no time flat, washing it all down with milky tea.  Angie brought her a Thermos and smiled as she wished Peggy a nice day. Steve looked away as Peggy smiled back; he didn’t want to take a friendly moment for any more than it was.     
  
Peggy was out the door, back at work on the day after Boxing Day, and finally Professor Erskine showed up for breakfast. Steve greeted him as he sat.    
  
“Good morning, Professor,” Angie said.  “Will you prefer tea or coffee with your breakfast?”   
  
“Coffee, please, and a lot of it,” Erskine answered.  “And do I smell croissants?”   
  
“Yes, sir,” Angie said sweetly.    
  
“That sounds wonderful, thank you,” Erskine said.   
  
Erskine surveyed Steve as they waited for Angie to return.  “Sorry I had to forbid you from eating this morning,” Dr. Erskine said.   
  
“I’ll get by,” Steve said.   
  
“We’ll get started right away,” Erskine reassured him, and sure enough, when Angie returned, Erskine stood.  He’d been given a suite on the third floor, so Angie led them there by the service elevator.    
  
“Ring if you need anything, sir,” Angie said, showing Dr. Erskine the button for the bell.  She spoiled her performance with a wink to Steve before she went.   
  
“What a charming girl,” Erskine absently remarked.  
  
Steve nodded again.   
  
“You’ll have to be a bit more talkative,” Erskine said, addressing Steve more directly.   
  
“What about?” Steve answered, sitting up straighter.   
  
“Tell me about your background, your life, your illnesses, your strengths…. everything,” Erskine said, leaning back in his chair and lacing his fingers together.   
  
Steve began to talk.  “I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York.  My ma was a nurse and my da died from complications after exposure to mustard gas in the Great War. She raised me by herself, but she died when I was fifteen.  I spent a couple years in the orphanage, and the sisters saw that I was good at drawing.  The mother superior decided I should be an artist, and set it up with the art teacher at the high school to give me extra lessons.  By the time I finished high school, I had the equivalent of two years of art school.”   
  
“Very good,” Erskine said. “So you went to work right away as an artist?”   
  
“I got some work through the New Deal, designing posters; I drew illustrations for pamphlets, painted a few murals, that sort of thing.”   
  
“How did you end up working for Arnim Zola?” Erskine asked.   
  
Steve’s mouth went dry. “How did you…”   
  
Erskine took off his glasses and polished them with his handkerchief.  He leaned forward and looked Steve in the eye.   
  
“Your friend Natalie has given money to many of my colleagues.  Many great minds.  Many powerful men, ambitious men.  Zola showed your work for him at a conference last year; many of these men I speak of were in attendance.”   
  
Steve had been working for Zola when he found Bucky.  He had pushed out of his mind just how long he had been there, working for Lernaean Labs, helping Zola document his experiments.   
  
“I needed work,” Steve said, a little defensively.  “I had to eat, and Zola had money.  Besides, he said he was trying to improve conditions for the human race. In the beginning, I guess I believed him.”  
  
“Hm,” Erskine nodded. “Is that what you want? To make things better? Wouldn’t it be easier just to get rid of inferior specimens?”   
  
Steve frowned darkly. “If everyone considered ‘inferior’ were eliminated, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”   
  
Erskine folded his hands together.  “This is what the eugenicists don’t understand. Men like yourself, men who have suffered weakness, pain, degradation — these men produce our greatest dreams for a truly better tomorrow.  Perhaps it would be easier to simply leave behind, or eliminate, those among us who seem to need more help in their struggle to survive.  But if our creative minds are cut down, the future of humanity shrivels into dust, the blossom pinched off before it has a chance to bear fruit.”   
  
“So that’s why you want to help me?” Steve asked. “Because I’m an artist, and I’ve had a hard time of it?”   
  
“I’m a scientist,” Erskine shrugged.  “Without test subjects, my work is nothing more than hot air.  But to the point, I’ve chosen you because your friends vouch for your character, and I have seen your work with my own eyes.”  
  
Erskine leaned forward again. “You have greatness within you, Steven Grant Rogers.  I’m not trying to do you any favors.  I’m helping you realize your potential for the good of the human race.”   
  
Shivers ran down Steve’s spine as Erskine intoned the weighty words.   
  
“Now, tell me your ailments, and don’t omit anything,” Erskine said, and took notes as Steve recited the lengthy list, ticking it off on his fingers.   
  
“I’ve had bad ear infections, sinus infections, strep throat ever since I was a kid.  So I’m partially deaf.  And I have pretty bad asthma.  Plus, rheumatic fever when I was ten, damaged my heart. Bit of scoliosis. Poor digestion, ulcers, anemia. Plus, I’m red-green color blind.”   
  
Erskine wrote it all down.   
  
“Do you know how tall your parents were?” he asked.   
  
“My ma was five three, and she said my da was a little under six feet,”  Steve said.  Steve had finally reached five four only after his ma had passed away. In his memory, she had always been taller than him.  He couldn’t really picture the man in the precious few photos, his father, tall and strong before he was stricken down by the war.    
  
“Hm,” Erskine said.  “Take off your shoes and socks.  Yes.  Your hands, please.  Mmhm.”  He took out a tape measure and recorded the length of Steve’s hands and feet, then the circumference of his cranium.    
  
“You were very poor growing up?” Erskine said.  “Not enough food on the table?”   
  
“Ma did her best,” Steve said, frowning.   
  
“Nonetheless, you had a critical lack of nutrition during formative stages.  I believe I can remedy this. Your genetic heritage indicates that greater height and strength should have been your birthright.”   
  
“Mm,” Steve said, trying not to get angry.  He’d heard too much criticism about his size for one lifetime.  “How can you do anything now about what happened while I was still growing?”   
  
“We will see,” Erskine said vaguely.    
  
Erskine made him take off the rest of his clothes down to his shorts, weighed him, and made him lie down on the twin bed beside the window.  Steve wasn’t worried until Erskine brought out the straps.   
  
“What’s all this?” Steve asked as Erskine buckled wide, padded cuffs around Steve’s wrists and ankles.  
  
Erskine raised his eyebrows.  “I believe I informed you that previous recipients of these treatments have not responded in an entirely favorable fashion.”   
  
“Yeah,” Steve said, “but you didn’t say anything about strapping me down!”   
  
“You want the full disclosure, then, I take it,” Erskine sighed.    
  
“You bet,” Steve retorted, trying to keep a lid on his temper.    
  
Erskine dropped finished buckling the last cuff and dropped Steve’s arm.  “You cannot hope to comprehend the breadth of treatment you are about to undergo.  Miss Carter may have given you the impression that she understands the process, but she is mistaken.  Your ailments are many; the treatments and serums you must receive are varied and will take a good deal of time to administer.  Your friend Mrs. Rushman, as she is currently called, has made it worth my time to come here, and you need not fear that you will be abandoned in mid-course.”   
  
Steve did not like the sound of what he was hearing.  “What do you mean, a good deal of time?  All day?”   
  
Erskine stared at Steve for a moment, then broke into hearty laughter.    
  
“Steven Grant Rogers,” Erskine croaked through a broad smile as he pulled himself together.  “Do you imagine that I am a sorcerer? Do you think Rome was built in a day? Nature has taken two decades to build up this temple of your spirit — can I tear it down and rebuild it in three shakes of a lamb’s tail?”  Erkine stared at Steve, very intently through his thick lenses.  His smile was cheerful, but also deadly serious.   He began to tick on his fingers. “You will receive serums.  You will receive treatments.  It will take time.  At certain points, you may float on clouds of euphoria.  At others, you may feel agonizing pain, though I hope that certain countermeasures succeed.”  
  
Agonizing pain? Steve had lived through years of pain; he thought he knew how to cope.  “How long?”   
  
“Do not ask me this question,” Erskine said.  “I cannot answer with any hope to accuracy.”   
  
“How long?” Steve insisted.  Bucky was still out there, alone, probably suffering in Pierce’s clutches, while Steve took one day at a time, waiting for Bucky’s return.  To think of himself insensible, dreaming away the hours in blissful oblivion, felt wrong to Steve. “A week?” Steve pressed, when Erskine did not answer.    
  
“Let us say, at least a week,” Erskine answered.    
  
A week Steve could deal with.  He might emerge on the other side, stronger, ready to go looking for Bucky, and no one, not Pierce, not Zola, not even the phantom Schmidt or mad old Doctor Sweeney would be able to stop his search until Bucky was found.   
  
“Do I have your consent?” Erskine asked.   
  
“Yes,” Steve said.    
  
“Then lie down comfortably, grip the bars at the end of the cot, and let me tighten these restraints.”   
  
Steve obeyed, and Erskine added a band across his hips for good measure.    
  
“Now, this will sting,” Erkskine warned, emptying a syringe into Steve’s thigh.  The thick serum swelled inside the muscle with an ache.    
  
“That wasn’t so bad,” Steve said.    
  
“That was penicillin,” Erskine said.  “Lie back, and try to think good thoughts.”   
  
Steve felt another pinprick in his upper arm, and the room began to spin.    
  
“I think I’m gonna be sick,” he whispered.   
  
“Maybe,” Erskine said.  “Or maybe, soon you will begin to be well.”

Erskine's face swirled and dimmed as Steve fell into a chasm of vertigo and darkness. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always for your comments! I hope you're enjoying the ride. :)


	15. Dreams, visions, memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> what is revealed during Steve's procedure

  
  
   
light  
   
flashes  
   
flashes of light  
   
brilliant strobes of lightning across a formless sky   
   
swirls of color across the void  
   
blue, lavender, gray, white, shades Steve knew but in more hues than he believed possible  
   
clouds billowing tumbling rushing across the sky   
   
waves crashing racing across an endless ocean crush of ice and spray   
   
avalanches of snow, falling in tumults, like a waterfall from space into an endless infinite   
  
falling   
  
falling   
  
howling wind in his ears as he falls  
  
air battering his body  
  
straps jerk and haul   
  
floating     snow  
  
waves     crashing  
  
  
roaring  
  
  
white   
  
  
  
silence  
  
  
  
. . .   
  
  
“Can he hear us?”   
  
“He’s in a hypnogogic state, so, yes and no, Natalia.”   
  
“Hypnotism?”   
  
“Not as you are thinking, Miss Carter.  Certain recently discovered substances unlock the perceptions. Through these substances, the mind realizes its potential to alter the body.”   
  
“His eyes are darting back and forth.”   
  
“Doubtless he is dreaming.”   
  
“Pleasant dreams, I hope, doctor?”   
  
“We hope he is dreaming his way to a better reality.  But, I must admit, not every reality has a pretty face.”   
  
“Does it hurt?”   
  
“Under normal circumstances what the body is going through would be excruciating.  But the hope is that the hypnogogic state protects the mind from registering pain.”   
  
“His progress is amazing.  The changes…”    
  
“Yes, it’s going very well, I’d say.”   
  
“How much longer must he endure all this?”   
  
“I don’t know for certain.  The changes occur in fits and starts, as the body adapts to stimuli.”   
  
“How will you know when it’s over?”   
  
“Ha!  It’s a bit like popping corn.  You must wait until the pops are fewer and farther between, but take the pot off the fire before it burns.”   
  
“I see.”  
  
“What — what’s happening? Help him!”   
  
“Don’t worry, my dear, it’s normal.”   
  
“Seizures that violent are normal? It’s terrifying!  His back — his arms and legs — he’s going to break something!”   
  
“Please, Miss Carter, Natalia, these seizures are an important part of the process.  Do you think a man’s long bones could grow six, eight, ten inches with no violence to the body? His muscles must strengthen and grow alongside the bones.”   
  
“I must admit, the traction devices look terrifying… it looks like he’s being broken on the rack.”   
  
“One must first break what one hopes to mend. His spine is straighter now than it has ever been.  Ah, ah, ah, Miss Carter, I must ask that you do not touch him. He is, as you might say, a live wire.”  
  
“I beg your pardon?”   
  
“A direct current of fifteen milliamps pulses through his body, stimulating his muscles to grow stronger, but not enough to damage his heart, lungs, or nervous system.”   
  
“Doctor, these procedures are so extreme… how were they ever discovered?”   
  
“Like every worker of science, I stand on the shoulders of those who came before.  But trial and error also enters into every experiment.”   
  
“So you try something on him and wait for an effect?”   
  
“No need to be over protective, Natalia.  As Steven prospers, so does my research, yes?”   
  
“I hope so.”   
  
“Yes, yes.  Do not fear.  All will be well.  Merely witness how much progress has already been made.”  
  
“It is incredible, I must admit.  There’s no way to know how much longer?”   
  
“His genetic heritage would indicate a height potential of a little under six feet — but at the rate he is growing, I think he will surpass that. The damage to his heart from rheumatic fever has already been reversed; it beats stronger every day.   His respiratory and digestive systems are responding very well to the immunity regimen.  We won’t know for certain about his hearing and eyesight until he wakes up, but I have great hopes.”   
  
“You can make the blind to see, and the deaf to hear?”   
  
“I am very optimistic that he will see and hear perfectly. Injections, traction, controlled nutrition, electrical and chemical stimuli, various other cranio-sacral adjustments and procedures, all this shifts the body free from the internal and external limits on his human potential.   Steven’s heart will beat slow and strong like a top athlete’s, his stature and musculature will be like a god’s.  His mind may unlock abilities of which we can only dream.”   
  
“Steve, if you can hear me, it’s going well. It’s going very well.”  
  
“No doubt your positivity will make a great deal of difference, Miss Carter.”   
  
“There’s no need to mock.”   
  
“Far be it from me to mock!  I am perfectly serious.  Pray for him with your every waking breath, to whichever deity you hold dear.  It will make a difference.”   
  
_“Bog blagoslovil, Styopa.”_   
  
“Thank you, Doctor.”   
  
“You are very welcome.  Keep us both in your good thoughts.”   
  
. . .   
  
  
Rule number one: always get up.   
  
A lotta guys say to stay down.  But you stay down one time, and the fight just bleeds outta ya.   
  
You gotta get up, every time, no matter what — no matter how much it hurts, no matter how hard they hit, you get back up and look em in the eye.    
  
Make em believe you could do it all day.    
  
Even when they got you in a grip like iron, face down in clinging, black mud — arms like iron bands bending you in two — you keep fighting.  With every spare ounce of strength, every cussed breath in your no-good lungs, you make up for what you don’t got with pure determination.  You straighten your crooked spine and throw your best punch, stagger up no matter what.    
  
No one keeps you down, you get back up, you fight back with everything you got against the choking darkness.     
  
Rumlow tried to take you down; he dared to lay a hand on you, and Bucky nearly murdered him.   
  
Bucky shines like a star outta the blackness.  His hair, long and loose, falls around his face.   His lips are bitten red; his eyes are dark, mournful, lost.    
  
You gotta get to him.    
  
It’s like swimming against a tide, a thick black ooze of ice cold darkness.    
  
You fight towards Bucky, and Bucky dwindles away into the distance.    
  
You try to call out but the ooze presses in, it chokes you and you cough it out.   
  
Bucky is gone.    
  
Was he ever there?   
  
He was always there.    
  
Even when you had nothing…  
  
. . .   
  
  
“No,” Bucky said. “End of discussion.”  He rocked his chair back, away from their kitchen table, and crossed his arms, looking away from Steve.    
  
Steve’s chin went up and his eyes got hard.  He scraped his own chair loudly back, took up the dishes, and started wiping them down, his back a hard line turned toward Bucky.    
  
“Stevie, no,” Bucky pleaded.  “You gotta listen to reason.  I’m a cop, I been training for this for years.  I never shoulda told you about any of it.”   
  
Steve threw down his cold, soapy rag and turned to face Bucky.    
  
“So you were just gonna disappear, never say a word?  After all this time, all the times I looked the other way while you do your job, and I don’t deserve at least to know where you are?”   
  
Bucky had done more than his share of undercover work in vice that made Steve avert his attention.  Bucky belonged wholeheartedly to Steve, and Steve believed that, but when Bucky was on the job other men did whatever they wanted to Bucky. Steve burned with fury at the thought of anyone touching Bucky with disrespect, and it made Steve sick to think that the things he longed to do with Bucky might be anything like what other men had done to him.  Bucky’s pure heart and beautiful soul were beyond their lustful reach, but the marks Bucky brought home on his body filled Steve with revulsion.  Saintlike, Bucky bore his stigmata and Steve looked away. They held each other close, chaste, waiting for a less troubled future to tumble down the line.   
  
“Stevie, come on, don’t be that way.  I told you, didn’t I? I trust you, Stevie, I trust you with my life.  But now I gotta trust that you ain’t gonna do something stupid, make it worse, maybe get us both killed.”   
  
“I ain’t gonna get killed,” Steve mumbled, guiltily trying to avoid the other thought.    
  
But Bucky wasn’t having it.  “Get us both killed, I said.”   
  
“Oh, Barnes, that’s dirty pool,” Steve grumbled.   
  
Bucky laid his big hands on Steve’s shoulders, and Steve allowed it.  Bucky shook him lightly, lovingly.    
  
“You wanna play the game, you gotta learn the house rules.  This outfit plays for keeps.  Murder is nothing to them.  They get wind of me being a cop, it’s over.  I got no bargaining chips; I’m just a complication for them to iron out.  You gotta lay low and let me do my job, Stevie.  My life is on the line out there.”   
  
Steve’s arguments fell apart.  He knew Bucky was right, no matter how much it rankled.  “I don’t like it.  I don’t like it, Buck.”   
  
Bucky held out his arms, and Steve folded himself against his best friend.  He couldn’t imagine life without Bucky, if something went wrong…  
  
“Nobody likes it, Stevie, but that’s how it is.  What kind of man would I be if I didn’t do my part to get rid of the scum in this town, make it safe for my little sister to walk down the street?”    
  
Bucky soothed his arms down Steve’s aching back, combing the muscles with his fingers.  Bucky’s touch always made Steve feel better, but his chest still hurt as he tried to keep his breathing steady against the tide of emotion.   “What about me, Buck? What kind of man am I, then? I just sit back and twiddle my thumbs?”   
  
“Nah, Stevie.  You’re the one I’m fighting for.  You put the blood in my veins, you know that.”   Steve pressed his bad ear to Bucky’s chest, listening to the indistinct rumble and feeling Bucky alive against his cheek.    
  
Nothing felt better than the way Steve fit against Bucky.  As hard as it was for the two of them, hiding their devotion behind locked doors and low shades while Bucky sold himself for the greater good, the idea of life without Bucky was a horror Steve couldn’t contemplate: a barren, meaningless existence, cold, stripped of color.   Time after time, Bucky pulled Steve up out of the dirt, never caring if that dirt got on him, a tarnished angel. Inside, where it counted, Bucky was pure gold, a pearl of great price. Even when Steve’s ma died, Bucky was there, making the pain somehow bearable. If anything happened to Bucky, Steve wouldn’t stop, he’d give up everything he had to make it right.      
  
But now Bucky was running headfirst into danger, putting himself in harm’s way, going up against a senseless, vicious, visceral evil.  By nature Bucky was protective, and that was why he was so good at his job.  But even though he deeply respected and admired Bucky’s motives, that didn’t mean Steve had to like it when Bucky put himself, his own life, on the front line.    
  
“I don’t like it,” Steve repeated.    
  
“I love you,” Bucky whispered, kissing Steve’s frowning forehead.  “I gotta know you’re safe.”   
  
“Okay,” Steve relented, and Bucky sighed, his strong hands firm and gentle up and down Steve’s back.    
  
Despite his acquiescence, on the inside, Steve hadn’t given in.  If something went wrong, he would go after Bucky and never stop till he got him back, or tore the world apart trying.    
  
. . .   
  
  
Steve sipped at his punch, trying to keep up a good face as happy couples twirled around the floor.   
  
The dance came to an end, and the glowing young bride broke free from her new husband and skipped over to Steve.   
  
“I know you don’t usually dance, Stevie, but can’t you make an exception for Mrs. Proctor?” Becky asked.    
  
“Sure, Becky, I can try,” Steve said.   
  
The band played something slow and Steve moved carefully through the simple steps.   
  
“Heard from my brother lately?” Becky asked.  “I never thought he’d miss my wedding day.”   
  
“You know how it is,” Steve said.  “He can’t always get away.”   
  
“But he’s safe, at least, isn’t he?” Becky asked.   
  
“The department hasn’t told me any different,” Steve said.  To be honest, they probably wouldn’t; in their eyes, Steve was nothing more than Bucky’s roommate.  Becky was still his next of kin.   
  
“He’s been out of touch for so long… can’t you at least try to find out where he is?” Becky asked.   
  
Steve heart clenched in frustration.  “That’s not really how his job goes…” he replied weakly.    
  
Becky frowned, and her pleading look was so much like Bucky’s that Steve was helpless. “I’ll see what I can do.”   
  
“He’s okay, right, Stevie?”   
  
“Yeah,” Steve said, but in his gut, he knew something had gone wrong.   
  
. . .   
  
  
"Your qualifications are excellent, Mr. Rogers." The old man behind the desk gave a kindly and reassuring smile.  His gold wedding ring glinted as he twisted it absently.  What a gentle voice, just like the grandfather Steve had never known.   
  
For some reason, Steve hadn't brought his portfolio.   He felt a cold sweat spring out.  How could he be so stupid, going to an interview without his portfolio?   
  
"They are?" Steve asked.   
  
"Oh yes," was the reply.  "Dr. Zola is so pleased that you'll be working with us."   
  
"He is?" Steve asked again.  "But I didn't... what about... I'm working on three commissions right now..."   
  
"All that will be taken care of," the old man reassured. "You have nothing to worry about."   
  
Steve's objections drifted away.  What a good old man, to offer Steve a job, when everything else had been lost.      
  
"You will stay here and help Dr. Zola in the work.   Since your mother's death, nothing else matters. You've been alone your whole life, isolated, but your work here will give your life meaning."  
  
"My life has meaning," Steve rejoined:  dark hair, a teasing smile, pale eyes bright with love, the soothing touch of big hands...  
  
"You must forget all that came before.  Nothing has meaning but the work.  Your old life is over.  Your new life is here, doing the good work with us.    
  
Steve's heart filled with sadness.  His mother was dead; his education, ruined.   This job would be his last best hope.   
  
"You will do good work here.  Do as Dr. Zola asks, and all will be well."   
  
"Yes, sir," Steve said.   
  
"Very good," the old man said, twisting his ring, the last bit of gold in a dull and faded world.   
  
. . .   
  
This is a vision:   
  
Stormclouds, low and heavy, roiling across a black night sky;  
a fortress, stone heaped upon stone, clinging to a sheer rock face;    
the shape of a man, swathed in black, standing on the highest parapet.   
  
Wind whips his long dark hair in tangles unkempt across the shadows of his face.   
His eyes are dulled by despair, head bowed, face half hidden by a mask.   
His arm, somehow wrong, gleams dully like the barrel of a gun.    
  
A tightened fist hints at his defiance.    He lifts his countenance.   
His gaze, silver pale, transfixes:  loss,  confusion,  sorrow,  pleas.  
  
Is he a monster?   Or has he been made by monsters?   
Rip the mask away, let him speak.    What would he ask, demand, or beg?   
  
Any simple human touch in this unrelenting world of cruelty.    
  
. . .   
  
  
Steve knows that landscape from European painters, the jagged peaks of the Alps.  The fortress is vague, brought forth from the cliff with a few hasty strokes.  The central figure resonates with Steve and he leans forward, eyes dilating, mouth falling open, to gaze intently at that staunch yet tortured character.      
  
The silver arm gleams like starlight, but the tension of the image is focused on the fist. The same silver gleams from the eyes, peering out of the darkness in clear desperation.  A cruel mask negates the rest of the face.  What would he say if he could speak?  
  
Steve can read that powerful stance, determined fist, crystalline gaze— the man is starved for justice, but almost ready to leap from the tower, to end it all on the jagged rocks. Every man has a breaking point, even one whose strong shoulders and stalwart stance has already weathered so much.    
  
Just one touch, one kind hand to the shoulder, the vital fist, the tangled brow, might change the world.    
  
If that man were real, Steve would want to be the one reach out, to touch, to make that change.   
  
. . .   
  
  
A face peering in at a window   
a pale face, tangled hair, silver eyes, a gleaming fist  
  
A body on a bed, tied, from time to time convulsing  
familiar, beloved, estranged  
  
memories excised like photographs with the faces cut away  
texts with black boxes obliterating every name, every story  
  
yet between the body oblivious and the face disconsolate  
there is an unbreakable cord, binding them together, eternal  
  
an infinite thread, a line with no end  
  
unites these souls the world tries to untie    
  
. . .   
  
  
Still and silent behind the glassy silver stare: “Steve”   
  
Pulsing through mind and spine and every strung taut sinew: “Bucky”   
  
. . .   
  
  
“The new asset is too hard to control. Wipe him again.”  
  
“He heals too fast, he’s too strong.”  
  
“Lock him down and wipe him again.”  
  
“He’s made three escapes in the past ten days.”  
  
“But he always returns.”  
  
“Yes.”  
   
“Then the process is working.”  
  
“I’m not sure…”  
  
“We work with facts here, not suppositions!”  
  
“Yes, Dr. Pierce.”   
  
  
. . .   
  
  
flash   
a sadistic grin on a raw head red as the devil  
  
flash   
a rictus of agony, lightning from a hellish halo  
  
Steve sees it all.    
Across a chasm his soul’s mate cries out.    
He hears.   
He knows.   
He remembers.   
  
He grits his teeth in determination.    
Time to wake up.    
  
  
. . .   
  
  
  
He opens his eyes. The world is bright and new.  Behind his eyelids he still sees flashes, lightning, a storm, a dark and fiery chasm he must bridge.  Memories, dreams, visions … he knows now.  He remembers.   
  
“Steve? how do you feel?   
  
“Hungry.”  Angry. Ready.   
  
“Help him up.”  
  
“Steady on, Steve.  That’s right.”  
  
“Peggy — Natasha — you look so much smaller…”  
  
“Bring this man a large breakfast and we shall try to explain.”   
  
   
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know if this was too confusing, or if you liked it. :) 
> 
> Natasha said in Russian, God bless you Steven. (I hope that's what she said!) If anyone reading this knows a better way to say it, please let me know!!


	16. the call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve wants Bucky to come back to him.

Steve was awake, wide awake, full of energy and ready to move.  
  
He’d been tied to that cot for over two months — and there was still no sign of Bucky.  
  
But that wasn’t quite right.  In his dreams and visions, confused images of Bucky had recurred time after time:  Bucky’s long, tangled hair, whipping around his face, his gaze tormented and lost.  Bucky in high places, looking down.  Bucky suffering, escaping, being drawn back somehow to his captors.    
  
Steve had no real proof, but he couldn’t shake the idea that Pierce had taken Bucky to the Soldier’s Home.   Steve’s desire to break Bucky free overwhelmed him, every single hour of the day: at dinner, at breakfast, before bed, whenever he saw his friends in the hall.  He had only been out of Erskine’s room since yesterday, and already he was champing at the bit and driving his friends crazy.  
  
Natasha and Dr. Erskine were having tea with Peggy, who was home early.  Ness’s marriage had dissolved while Steve had been unconscious; his department wasn’t doing much, and he often ran out of work for Peggy.  
  
Despite the fact that Peggy was bored and impatient to accomplish something, she was adamant that Steve needed to think things through before he rushed into action.  “What is your plan, Steve? You intend to knock down doors and start throwing people around?”  
  
“I wonder what they’ll think when they see how you’ve changed?” Natasha wondered.  
  
Steve frowned.  How could he ever explain, to anyone, how he’d gone from five foot four to six one in two months, from asthmatic and weak to athletic and near superhuman.  All the potentials that had lain dormant inside him his whole life, despite his best efforts, had now broken to the surface.  His body, now, was capable of more that he could have ever dreamed.  
  
“I’ll sneak in,” Steve said.  
  
“That’s called breaking and entering,” Peggy snapped.  “You need a warrant.”  
  
“We can’t get a warrant on the basis of my fever dreams,” Steve complained.  
  
“That’s exactly right,” Peggy said, eyebrows high.  “Nor will any judge excuse you if you threaten Pierce with bodily harm.  That’s harassment at the very least and assault if anyone is in a bad mood.”  
  
Steve growled in the back of his throat, frustrated.   “Bucky needs help.  He’s under their control somehow. I have to find him.”  
  
His friends seemed to take seriously what Steve was saying. Erskine had interviewed Steve extensively about his mental processes during the procedure.  Steve couldn’t possibly sum up, or even begin to put into words, all the experiences he’d had, but he’d done his best.  Erskine, Natasha, and Peggy listened while he struggled to convey his sense that he’d known Bucky for practically his whole life, that they’d been best friends (and privately, something much more), that the mesmerist had taken that life away from Steve, and that Pierce now controlled Bucky — though perhaps not absolutely.    
  
“If you believe that your visions really are true somehow, why don’t you just wait for him?” Natasha asked.  
  
“What?” Steve asked.  
  
“You told us that in one of your visions, he repeatedly broke free from his captors.  If that’s really true, you should just wait for him to remember you, see if you can get him to come to you.”  
  
Steve peered at Natasha to see if she was mocking him, but her clear green gaze was impenetrable. He glanced at Peggy, and she was looking back at him carefully.  
  
“If Bucky is at large, and he is looking for you — maybe he’s just been waiting for you to wake up,” Peggy suggested.  The corners of her mouth pulled down a little with skepticism.  
  
“I am very interested in the visions the two of you seemed to share,” Dr. Erskine noted.   He studied Steve through the thick lenses of his glasses.  “You were able to report at least one conversation that might have been something your friend overheard.  What further abilities might this mental link convey? Perhaps you are capable of communicating with him in ways none of us can even imagine.”  
  
“Have you tried?” Natasha asked.  
  
“Have I tried what?” Steve said, turning his head to the side — as if he hadn’t completely recovered the hearing in his old bad ear.  
  
“Have you tried calling out to him? Maybe he can hear you,” Natasha said.    
  
Peggy glanced probingly at her friend. “Really?”  
  
Natasha blushed and cast her eyes to the ground.  “Steve has just been through something we can’t understand.  Probably Steve dreamed of Bucky because he misses him so much.   But possibly, something more is going on. The only thing I know for sure is that I can’t trust what I seem to remember inside my own head.  If Steve has memories he feels he can believe in, why not try them?  Either he’s wrong or right.  There’s no shame in trying.”  
  
Steve was struck by Natasha’s simple pragmatism.  The months he’d spent during the procedure had yielded up a precious concatenation of images: tenuous dreams were all Steve had to go on, but they presented at least a few crucial details more than investigations had previously yielded.  If, in fact, the visions were nothing more than wishful thinking, Steve was no further from Bucky than they were already.  But, if the visions were the effect of something real, then they might lead to getting Bucky back.    
  
Steve looked to Peggy.  He trusted her to be clearheaded and rational.  She gave him a slight nod and met his eye with her calm, unblinking gaze.  
  
“You may as well try. I’ve no special belief in the supernatural, but I do feel sure that despite all modern science has discovered, there is much more that we don’t know.”  
  
“Okay,” Steve said.  “I’ll try.”  
  
Dr. Erskine gave a small, satisfied smile and sipped at his tea.    
  
Steve spent the rest of the afternoon in his studio.  With some trepidation, he whisked the sheet off the full-length portrait of Natasha he had almost finished before the procedure. What would it look like to him, now that his vision was sharp and new?  
  
Steve was shocked to see that his painting was glorious.  His rendition of Natasha’s beauty was layered deep with knowledge of the undaunted spirit inside the woman’s radiant form.  Her eyes glowed with warm determination.  Her stance, three quarters turned, was alive with grace and movement.  The sheen of her finely muscled arm, the graceful curve of her neck, the fullness of her lip, the tousled fall of her brilliant auburn hair — every part of the image was in play with every other part.  Steve’s focus on the painting, before his transformation, had been so deep into the details that he had not realized that his painting was practically complete.  The background was a subtle play of gold, emerald and turquoise, glowing with jewel tones that were echoed in Natasha’s dress, in her hair and eyes and skin tone.  Natasha was rendered in the painting as a living work of art, flawless as a perfectly cut gem, but vibrant with life and emotion.  Steve had never really been able to judge the quality of his own work; moreover, he had never had the resources to devote himself fully to perfecting a piece.  Here, in this portrait of his friend, he had done so.  Even now, he could see places where the painting could be even more exquisitely finished, and he promised himself he would not stop until he could truly make no more improvements.  But even to his own critical eyes, the painting was a masterpiece.    
  
He stood, staring, and his eyes filled with tears.  He remembered, now, everything the mesmerist had stolen from him, the years he and Bucky had lived together.   Steve had captured Bucky’s image in lined composition notebooks or on butcher paper, but he’d never had the chance to make a portrait like this of James Buchanan Barnes, the most beautiful human being Steve had ever known.  He swore that it was not too late: he would get out there and somehow find the man who made his life worth living. He would find Bucky and bring him home, or die trying.    
  
Steve returned the sheet to cover the large oil of Natasha.  The studio was hazy with the cold slanted light of a mid-March afternoon. The light was not ideal, but he had better materials now, better light, better vision, better stamina than he’d ever had in his life.  He pulled out a sheet of heavy paper, set it up on his drawing board, and got to work. His hand flew over the paper, swift and sure, and the image in his mind quickly took shape in reality.  The cliff, the man, the storm — the tormented brow, the suffocating mask.  In the lower right hand quadrant he let another image appear — Bucky’s face full on, calm, open, staring at the viewer, his gray-blue eyes full of serenity.  He worked with pastels for a little over an hour, at last finishing the portrait — faster than he’d ever finished a work, but no less sure of its essential rightness than he was of the full-length oil.  As Steve stared into Bucky’s beloved gaze, he swore to bring Bucky home and make that remembered face a new reality.  
  
That evening at supper Steve was quiet.  He was already drifting into a reverie in which Bucky played front and center.  During his long sleep, his memories of life with Bucky had been set free.  He remembered how the young Bucky had defended and befriended him, even though he and his sister were only orphans.  He remembered how resourceful Bucky was, how easily he charmed people into giving him work.  Bucky was worldly at a young age, exposed to all the wrong kinds of people, but somehow, he remained cheerful and clean-hearted even while the world tried to drag him down.  After Bucky got too old for the orphanage, he moved in with Steve.  He got a job with the police and started making pretty good money, contributing to the rent Steve’s ma paid, and putting money aside for Becky.    
  
Steve respected Bucky so much for joining the police, but he worried about Bucky constantly.  Bucky shrugged it off, even when he came home with bruises.  No matter how much it bothered Steve, Bucky’s steady job paid well and it was a godsend after Steve’s mother passed.  
  
“Stevie, you took me in when I had nothing. Now, you gotta let me take care of you for a while.”    
  
Bucky sent Steve to art school, he paid the bills around their apartment, and he encouraged Steve to make the most of developing his talent as an artist.  Steve began to get work — ads, signs, illustrations — even a few commissions.  Bucky rejoiced in every single one.    
  
Then it all fell apart, when Bucky went into deep cover and never came back, and Steve tried to go after him and lost everything.    
  
After a tense supper, with Steve scowling down at his food, and Natasha and Peggy making polite conversation with Dr. Erskine, Steve excused himself for the evening.  
  
He washed his face with a cool washcloth, soothing the heat of his anxiety.  What kind of dreams would he have that night? Powerful dreams, prophetic, clear and unambiguous? or nothing more than night time confusion as his brain cleared and restored itself for the coming day.    
  
Natasha had bought him new clothes.  His new pajamas, much larger than his old, threadbare ones, were soft, laundered flannel.    
  
It was easy to relax in the comfortable night clothes. His body quieted down with a minimum of starts and twitches, but his mind refused to calm.  He focused over and over again on the images from his dreams, but nothing seemed to settle.   Just as he was about to give up and let himself fall asleep for a few hours, something changed inside Steve’s head.  
  
A sense of expansion, openness, emptied Steve’s mind.  He felt, more than envisioned, that he had somehow made contact with Bucky, but finding Bucky didn’t fill Steve with peace and relief.   Bucky’s mind was raw, aching, confused and afraid and terribly sad. Bucky knew he was missing something, someone, but he wasn’t sure where to go, or what he was seeking.  His memories had been wiped clean.  He remembered just enough to be able to report to the men controlling him.    
  
There was still something wrong with his left arm, but Bucky refused to acknowledge that.  Steve didn’t want to pick through Bucky’s thoughts without permission, so he tried to get Bucky’s attention by calling out to him, mind to mind.    
  
Steve felt a little jolt as Bucky realized that Steve was somehow alive, somehow part of his world.    
  
“Bucky!” Steve called.    
  
The man in the darkness responded only with confusion, fear,  and static.  
  
“Bucky, it’s me, it’s Steve.  I remember you, I remember everything.  Come home, and we’ll remember it all together.”  
  
A wave of grief and anger washed over Steve, but the suggestion that Bucky seek him out seemed to take hold.    
  
“I’ll be waiting for you, Buck,” Steve promised. In his mind’s eye he could see Bucky as clear as day, but Bucky stared back at him with bone deep sorrow and frustrated defeat.    
  
“It’ll be okay, Bucky, if you come back to me, I promise I’ll make everything all right,” Steve babbled in his mind.  
  
Bucky’s figure in Steve’s head gave him one last look, turned and strode away, powerful but beaten.  
  
“Bucky!  Bucky!” Steve called.  He had fallen half-asleep, which only intensified his longing for Bucky to come back to him.    
  
Steve slept fitfully, waking, calling for Bucky, sleeping and dreaming of his lost lover and how desperate he was for his return. He could almost feel Bucky’s strong arms cradling him, he could almost smell the warm, comforting scent of Bucky, the smooth silkiness of his skin, his thick dark hair running through Steve’s fingers, the salt taste of Bucky on Steve’s lips.    
  
With a surge of energy, Steve jerked awake.  The full moon filled the room with shadowy light.    The window was open, curtains blowing a little in the cold winter air.    
  
Bucky was standing, dark and motionless, in the shadows beyond the foot of Steve’s bed.    
  
  
  



	17. Bucky comes home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky comes to Steve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So hey, NaNoWriMo is here! Today's inspiration is: to be a writer you need to make room in your life for writing. So here is today's 1700 words. :) Sorry they took so long to arrive, but this story is complicated and comes to me pretty slowly. I don't want to rush it and do something foolish! This week I found out that Natasha lives on Euclid Avenue, which was the mansion zone in Cleveland in the 1920s. Check out the Sylvester Everett mansion for a reference. :)

A charge went through Steve at the sight of the dark figure looming at the foot of his bed.  Wide awake, he tried not to make any sudden moves, but urgency seized his limbs as he carefully sat up.  In his head, he’d been dreaming of Bucky, calling out to him, and Steve could have sworn he’d perceived, impossibly, some kind of response. Now, there was nothing. Bucky was here, so maybe the call Steve sent out had worked, but there was no sense of an open connection now, nothing like what he’d felt as, delirious and yearning, he had longed for Bucky and seemed to sense an answer.    
  
Steve leaned forward, his lips moved and he whispered, so gently, “Bucky?”  
  
The figure at the foot of the bed moved, turning just enough to hide his left arm in shadow.  
  
“Bucky, I’m so glad you’re here,” Steve said, trying to keep his voice soft and gentle. He wasn’t very good at it; he’d always been passionate and loud, bad at keeping calm or being diplomatic.    
  
Bucky said nothing. His hair hung down around his face, so long that Steve could only think of the barbarian heroes of some of the pulps he’d illustrated, wild men cast after the mold of Tarzan.  With his new eyes, Steve could make out Bucky’s striking features, cast into shadow by the moonlight coming through the window.  Bucky was better looking than any movie star Steve could think of; Bucky’s face had already graced several of Steve’s illustration jobs.  But now, Steve could only see the deep lines that suffering had carved into Bucky’s forehead, around his mouth, under his eyes and in the hollows of his cheeks. Bucky was muscled, bigger than Steve remembered, but gaunt, as though he’d been stretched too thin, putting on strength at the cost of his health.  
  
“Are you okay?” Steve whispered, holding himself as still as he could.  He wanted to move, he wanted so badly to spring up and seize Bucky in his arms, pick him up with his strong new body and swirl Bucky around — like Bucky had swung laughing girls in so many dance halls.    But Steve had felt the confusion, fear and lost anger in Bucky’s empty mind.  Maybe that was real and maybe not, but if it was, Steve didn’t want to do anything to alarm Bucky,  to make him consider Steve as any kind of threat or, God forbid, to make him run.    
  
Bucky made no answer.  He just stood there, barely moving.     
  
“Can you talk?” Steve asked.  
  
Slowly, Bucky’s head turned from side to side,  a movement so slight that Steve could hardly see it.  Steve’s heart broke as Bucky shook his head no. That tiny movement had unlocked something in Bucky, and his body vibrated with terrified tremors, like a rabbit about to bolt.  
  
“Please,” Steve whispered.  “Please don’t be afraid.  Whatever happened to you, it’s over now.  You’re safe here.  Please, just let me help you.”  
  
Bucky shivered and held still and didn’t leave.  The curtains stirred at the window, moving in the frigid air.  Steve tried to catch Bucky’s eye but Bucky’s hair hung in the way.  Bucky watched him out of the corner of his vision, ready to bolt at the slightest threat.    
  
“Please,” Steve begged again. “Don’t be afraid.  Don’t be afraid of me.  Bucky, it’s me. It’s your Stevie. “  
  
All at once, Steve realized that he was the one who had been transformed.  Bucky was a little worse for wear, unkempt, and he had something wrong with his left arm, but Steve was more than twice the weight he’d been before the procedure, nine inches taller, and made of muscles where before had been little more than skin and bone.  
  
“Bucky, it’s me, Stevie.  It’s me.  Please, look at me.”  
  
Steve wasn’t above begging.  Bucky raised his chin just enough to let the hair fall away from his eyes, so full of pain and despair that Steve was horrified.    
  
Bucky’s lips moved, but no sound emerged.  
  
“Stevie,” Steve encouraged.  “It’s all right if you can’t say it.  I just wanna know you know it’s me.”  
  
Bucky’s frown deepened, but he nodded.  
  
“That’s good, that’s good!” Steve babbled.  “That’s okay, one thing at a time.  We’ll be okay, I swear.”  
  
“Can I get you anything? Can I … what do you need? You want a glass of water?”  With Bucky so near, Steve was frantic to move.  He wanted more than anything to leap out of bed and throw his arms around Bucky, to sob into his neck and feel Bucky’s strong arms wrap around him, safe and secure and Steve’s whole world like he always had been.  Holding himself still was making Steve feel desperate and even a little panicked.    
  
Bucky stirred, letting his chin drop, and his shaking grew more pronounced.   Clearly, he was suffering, and it was driving Steve out of his mind not to be able to do anything about it.    
  
“Can I touch you?” Steve whispered. “Please?”  
  
After a moment, Bucky nodded, almost imperceptibly.  
  
Steve moved slower than molasses, flowing like a glacier out from under the bedclothes, shuffling his feet across the floor to where Bucky stood, eyes downcast and head lowered, shaking now like a leaf.  
The muscles in Bucky’s jaws were flexed, hard as knots, and Steve could see his pulse, leaping in his throat.  
  
Steve opened his arms, but Bucky made no move.  Steve shuffled closer, till he could hear and feel Bucky’s shallow, panting breaths.    
  
“Bucky, it’s okay, it’s okay now.  I got you,” Steve murmured.   In the old days, Steve had loved nothing in the world more than holding Bucky and being held, tucking the top of his head under Bucky’s chin, laying his good ear against the steady beat of Bucky’s heart.  Now, Steve was far too big — at least an inch taller than Bucky, and Bucky was cowering like a beaten dog, waiting for the next blow to land, his heart pounding in his throat, almost holding his breath were it not for the sharp little pants that shook his chest.  
  
Steve moved closer.  The warmth of their bodies mingled.    
  
“Buck, I got you.  I got you,” Steve murmured, remembering how many times Bucky had pulled him up off the ground with similar reassurances.  
  
Steve’s forehead landed, light as a hummingbird, on Bucky’s right shoulder.  Bucky didn’t move.  Steve pressed closer, arms coming home, hovering, almost making contact.  
  
Then Steve’s hand brushed Bucky’s left arm, and all hell broke loose.    
  
Bucky exploded into movement, his right arm dealing an uppercut directly to Steve’s chin that sent him flying backward across the room to land on a small side table with a loud crash.  A blow half that strong would have killed Steve before the procedure. If his mouth hadn’t been closed, he might have severed his own tongue, or easily lost a few teeth.  As it was, he shook it off, clearing his vision just as Bucky made it to the window.  
  
“Bucky, stop!” he shouted.  His new voice was the one thing about him that hadn’t changed as much.  Louder, more powerful because of the new lungs, his deep voice was still the same as before.      
  
Bucky stopped, just at the window.    
  
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Steve said. Was the arm so painful that such a light touch had hurt Bucky so terribly?  
  
Bucky turned his head a little, glancing his eyes toward Steve.  
  
Steve got to his feet and opened his arms, not moving any closer.  Bucky, like a shy dog, took a few steps closer to him, and stopped, poised.  
  
His lips were moving, soundless.  Steve could read what he was saying.  
  
“Sorry, sorry, sorry.”  
  
“It’s okay,” Steve swore.  “It’s okay, I promise.”  
  
The moment hung, as Steve held his breath and waited for Bucky to step into his waiting arms.  
  
Then Bucky swung his head to glare at the door, and the door swung open, and Peggy and Natasha, in night clothes, stepped in.    
  
“Barnes!” Peggy exclaimed.    
  
Bucky turned for the window.    Steve, by instinct, grabbed for Bucky.   His fingers closed around Bucky’s arm, but it felt wrong — unyielding, hard, like something made of metal or stone, not at all like Steve knew Bucky’s arm should feel.  It was cold, which was strange, because Steve had just felt the heat coming off of Bucky’s body.  Why would one arm be so cold?  
  
Bucky violently yanked his arm free of Steve’s grasp and writhed away, aiming a deadly kick at Steve that glanced off Steve’s shoulder, sending him tumbling back. Desperately, Steve clung on, but Bucky’s left sleeve tore away in Steve’s hand.  
  
Natasha’s hand, on the light switch by the door, flicked upward.   The overhead light flared to life, drowning the room in brightness.  
  
For a moment Steve thought Bucky was wearing chain mail, like a knight from some old story. But no —  he was looking at Bucky’s naked arm, metallic, glinting silver, covered in scales, like the arm of some giant lizard.  Bucky’s arm was nothing human.    
  
Shocked, Steve stared at the arm, mouth agape and eyes wide.  What had they done to him? Bucky finally looked back, finally met Steve’s eyes: he was terrified, hopeless, ashamed. Then, once more, he turned away.  
  
Steve saw what was going to happen but he couldn’t move fast enough to stop it.  
  
Bucky dove headfirst out of Steve’s third floor window.     
  
“Bucky!” Steve screamed, lurching after him.  
  
“Steve, no!”  Peggy cried, grabbing Steve by the shoulders and hauling backward on him with all her weight.  
  
“Bucky!” Steve screamed, shaking Peggy off, throwing the window sash higher, leaning out to look. Steve’s mind’s eye filled with the nightmare vision of Bucky’s broken body, limbs askew in a spreading black puddle, crimson leached of its color in the worst darkness before dawn Steve had ever imagined.    
  
The courtyard behind Natasha’s Euclid Avenue mansion was quiet, empty.  Her pool was covered for the winter.  Small evergreens clumped here and there amongst lawn furniture, bare of cushions for the season.    
  
Bucky was gone --again. But now, he was worse than gone.  He was lost.  He barely knew Steve. He couldn’t even speak.  He was terrified.    
  
And someone (Steve had an idea who) had convinced him he was a monster.

Alexander Pierce, and all his nasty henchmen, would rue the day they ever laid one finger on Bucky Barnes, Steve would make damn sure of it. 

 


	18. Holding Pattern

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve longs to charge after Bucky, but he can't risk doing more harm than good.

No one got any more sleep that night after Bucky went out the window.  
  
Steve was desperate to go after him, frantic with the need to keep him away from Pierce, but after Peggy bodily laid hold of him from to stop him from throwing himself out the window after Bucky, she and Natasha convinced him that he needed to think things through.    
  
Thinking wasn’t easy.   Steve should have been exhausted by such a rough night, that got started so early in the morning but his new body seemed to have limitless energy. He was thrumming with tension, ready to take someone on, do whatever it took, get Bucky back. His friends, however, had a harder time of it.  They regrouped downstairs around Natasha’s dining table.   Peggy made coffee, and she emptied cup after cup as she sat leafing through her files, going back through the notes they’d put together from Natasha’s donation history.     
  
Steve sipped at his coffee and felt no effects.   Before, coffee had been too harsh on his stomach for him to really enjoy. Now, he drank it just to be social. At least it was hot, and the pleasant, homey aroma made Steve think of Bucky, his love of a good cup of brew, how Bucky would use grounds three or four times until the coffee was little more than hot water, but the first time through he always gave a lusty sigh. Steve was horrified how easily Ivchenko had wiped away the years Bucky and Steve had lived together.    
  
Peggy noticed the look on Steve’s face and put down her notes.  “You can’t murder anyone,” she said.  
  
“Really?” Steve asked, feeling mulish and cross.  “Seems to me murder is pretty easy to get away with in this town.”  
  
Peggy solemnly ignored Steve’s jab.   “Pierce isn’t working alone.  We don’t know how many men are colluding with him.  And, he seems to have some kind of control over Barnes.  If you charge in without careful planning, you risk putting Barnes in danger.  Not just that, but he might attack you again.”  
  
The though of having to fight Bucky again made Steve simmer down a little.  The bruises on Steve’s lower jaw and shoulder were purple and swollen, but they were already beginning to fade.  The pain of the bruises was nothing to Steve, but the fact that Bucky had hit him, not once but twice, was a knife in Steve’s heart.  Bucky wouldn’t do that.  He would never do anything like that.  He had forgotten himself — they had made him forget.  He was like a wild animal caught in a trap, lashing out at any outstretched hand, even when the hand was trying to let him loose.  
  
“I did some checking at the office yesterday, looking into the details you mentioned from your dreams, and I found out Ivchenko is in the country,” Peggy said.  
  
“That dear old — “ Natasha began, before biting her tongue and blushing. “I’m sorry.  I recognized him from that habit you described, how he twists his ring.”    
  
“It’s a mesmeric focus,” Peggy said. “It captures subjects’ attention and helps bend them to his will.”  
  
Steve had to allow that it was a lot more subtle than a wand or a swinging stopwatch.    
  
“I can’t believe I still remember him fondly,” Natasha frowned.    
  
“It’s not your fault, dear.  He had so many sessions with you to build up the association,” Peggy explained.  “Now that you’re aware of it, your conscious mind can begin to re-evaluate and reject his suggestions.”    
  
“Ugh.” Natasha shivered, repulsed by the thought of someone else’s ideas slithering through her brain.    
  
“So here’s what we know so far,” Peggy said, bringing their attention back to her notes.  “Natasha’s money was supporting the mesmerist society, Lukin’s futurist group in Prague, and Dr. Erskine.  More recently, she’s donated to Pierce at the Ohio Soldier’s Home, to Zola at Lernaean Laboratories, and directly to Johann Schmidt.  Assuming all those donations were at the behest of Ivchenko, that’s quite a number of players at the table.”  
  
“Do we have any idea what Lukin is up to?” Steve asked.    
  
“We looked into it after we first went over my ledgers,”  Natasha said. “His group runs several retreats around Prague for the chronically ill — that doesn’t seem so bad.”   Natasha was usually so confident, it hurt Steve to see her doubts and diffidence in relation to the money she’d been donating without knowing why.    
  
“Perhaps Lukin’s group is on the up and up,” Peggy offered.    
  
“But just put it into context,” Steve said.  “Think if those retreats were like Pierce’s Soldiers’ Home.  They sound terrific till you see what they’re doing to some of the people who live there.”  
  
“True,” Natasha said, looking down.  
  
Steve felt ashamed. He was frustrated and angry, but that didn’t give him the right to be too much of a jerk, so he reached over to clasp Natasha’s hand.  She gave him a tiny smile and Steve tried his best to return it.  
  
“What about Schmidt?” Steve asked.  
  
“Initially, I thought he was primarily interested in antiquities, trying to locate legendary artifacts,” Peggy said. “But when I mentioned these names to Dr. Erskine, he told me that Schmidt was not only an archaeologist of sorts, but he had also been a colleague of Erskine’s. He was  brilliant, but utterly lacking in ethics.  After Erskine refused to work with him any more, Schmidt went to Zola, and since then Zola has been able to replicate some aspects of Erskine’s formulae.”  
  
“So Schmidt is an archaeologist, but also a biologist?” Steve asked.  
  
“Erskine says Schmidt trained in anthropology, and that his biological research runs primarily along the lines of recovering herbal lore and botanical medicine.”  
  
“So he’s a bad botanist chasing down fairy tales,” Steve hissed.  
  
“He’s nearly poisoned himself more than once.”  Peggy grimaced, and took a drink of her coffee.  “You need to take these people seriously, Steve,” she warned.  “If Erskine told you all the compounds he ran into your veins after Boxing Day, you’d be less skeptical about plant-based pharmacology.”  
  
Steve didn’t answer.  The world was full of things he didn’t know. “So, out of all of these men, how many are in the United States?”  
  
“As far as I can tell, Lukin is still working primarily in eastern Europe.  Erskine of course, and Pierce, and Zola, are here in the States, as is Ivchenko.  Schmidt, we don’t know.”  
  
Steve sat for a moment, thinking.  “At least Erskine is on our side,” he said.    
  
“Yes,” Peggy nodded.    
  
“Pierce and Zola are known quantities,” Steve said. “Ivchenko and Schmidt are the wild cards.”  
  
“Don’t under estimate Pierce or Zola,” Peggy said.  “If we’re right, they’re hardened murderers. The men behind the Kingsbury Run atrocities will stop at nothing.”  
  
“Unless Sweeney is really the killer,” Natasha offered, deadpan.  Peggy scowled.  Sweeney was a loose cannon; no one knew quite what to make of him, checking himself in and out of the Soldier’s Home, disparaging Ness and laughing about the killings.    
  
Steve spread his fingers out on the table, tense and nervous.  “Somehow Bucky ended up in Zola’s lab, after he was sent here to Cleveland.  Whoever got a hold of him, whatever they did, it was bad, and now it’s even worse.” By the time Steve reached the end of his chain of thought, his hands were tight fists.   “Peggy, please.  Can’t you go to Ness and get some kind of warrant?”  
  
“Steve, you’ve already been to the Soldier’s Home.  You didn’t find anything. I know it’s hard, but we need more to go on.”  
  
“I might have gotten more if you two hadn’t barged in!” Steve snapped.    
  
Peggy sat up straighter and met Steve’s glare with one of her own.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Steve said, deflating. “It’s just, Bucky was here, I actually had him in my grasp.  I almost had him back.”  
  
“I’m sorry, Steve,” Natasha said.  “We heard a crash, and then you were shouting Barnes’s name. We weren’t expecting anyone to jump out the window.”  
  
“No, of course not,” Steve said.  “It’s just so frustrating, to get him back for a minute after so long, and then to see him run away again of his own accord.”  
  
“He’s very likely to come back,” Peggy said, hopefully.  
  
“Is he?” Steve asked.  This seemed to Steve to be that very proverbial hour, the one that was darkest before the dawn.    
  
“I think so,” Peggy said.  “If we’re lucky, he’ll come back to Steve and never go back to them again.”  
  
“What did they do to him?” Steve whispered. Again and again, as he sat at Natasha’s table, Steve saw the terror in Bucky’s eyes, the horror and pain when Steve touched his arm, the wild headlong flight out the window.     
  
No one said anything as they remembered the uncanny silver arm, Bucky’s volatile actions, and his mute silence.    
  
“I touched it,” Steve said.  “The arm.  It was cold. I don’t understand.”  
  
Peggy pressed her lips together.  Natasha took Steve’s hand again and clasped it comfortingly.  “When you tell Dr. Erskine what happened, maybe he’ll know something.”  
  
Erskine was not an early riser; it was in his contract with Natasha that no one was allowed to roust him from bed in the mornings.    
  
Peggy ran her sharp gaze up and down her notes, scrutinizing at the list she’d made. “Schmidt,” she finally said.  “We’ve got to find out where he is, what he’s up to. I’ll talk to Ness today.  At least that’s one trail we haven’t been over and over.”  
  
“Thanks, Peggy,” Steve said.  “How’s Ness doing?”  
  
“Bad,” Peggy said.  “He’s at loose ends, drinking too much since Edna divorced him.  Ironic, isn’t it, that the man who brought down the bootleggers can’t hold his drink?”  
  
“Maybe a new lead will help him get back on track,” Steve said.  
  
Peggy nodded and went back to staring at the list.      
  
The sun still had not come up, but Lorraine arrived to begin work in the kitchen for the day. She was shocked to find so many people sitting around the dining table at such an early hour. She began to bring out food — eggs, ham, toast, orange juice and bananas —  and Steve was incredibly grateful.  He had been hungry ever since he woke up from Erksine’s procedure, and it still hadn’t sunk in how much more food he needed now with his new, more powerful body.    
  
Eventually Peggy left for work, and Natasha went to do her morning routines, and Steve was left alone, waiting for Erskine to wake up.    
  
“Professor,” Steve said, when Erskine finally came down.  It was really not that late, but it felt to Steve like he’d been up for hours by that point.    
  
“Good morning,” Erskine said.  “The ladies have already begun their day?”  
  
“Yes, we had an eventful night.  Bucky showed up last night  in my room.”  
  
Erskine seemed unsurprised.  “Please tell me everything,” he said. “Did you call out to him, as Natasha suggested?”  
  
Steve felt embarrassed to admit that he had, but it had worked, so he charged ahead.  “I did; I tried to; and I’m not sure what happened or how it might work, but Bucky did appear.”  
  
“And did this mental link remain in force while he was with you, in person?” Erskine demanded.  
  
“No,” Steve said.  “It seems like it only works when I’m almost asleep.”  
  
“Hm,” Erskine said. “Yes, I can see how that might be.  Your preconceptions inhibit the effect when you are fully awake, but when you are sleepy, your mind forgets what you are not supposed to be able to do.”  
  
Steve nodded reluctantly.  
  
“Could you glean anything of Barnes’s mindset?” Erskine demanded.    
  
“I could see his face,” Steve said.  “I could see everything in his expressions, terror, confusion… but not through, whatever it is, the link.”  
  
“Hm,” Erskine said again.    
  
“But what I really want to ask you about is his arm,” Steve added.    
  
“His arm?”  
  
Steve recounted the way that Bucky could not speak, his deadly strength, and the strange new arm he had revealed.  
  
“Can you make a picture of the arm?” Erskine requested.    
  
Steve was surprised by the simple request and felt a little dumb that he hadn’t already done so.  He ran to his room, retrieved his pencils and drawing paper, and returned to find Erskine in the middle of his breakfast.  As the professor ate, he peppered Steve with questions about his mental state during the night, whether he had sensed anything of Bucky mentally while he was awake (he hadn’t), and many other questions.    
  
Steve realized he had seen the arm in his visions, but not in any detail. Now, it was crystal clear in Steve’s memory.  He had no trouble conveying the image to paper.   As he drew, he realized he was thinking of the arm of a dragon.  The shining silver scales looked reptilian, covering Bucky’s arm like plate mail.  The arm was thick with muscle and Steve noted that Bucky’s fingers now ended in what looked like razor sharp claws.    
  
“How did they do that to him?” Steve demanded.  
  
“Why are you asking me?” Erskine responded.  
  
Steve saw that maybe he was being a little too aggressive, but what had happened to Bucky made Steve so angry, and it was so important to understand.  
  
“Well, you transformed me from a 110 pound weakling into a specimen of human perfection in just over two months,” Steve said, “so maybe you’re the expert in the room.”  
  
“If I were asked to take a wild guess,” Erskine said slowly, peering at Steve’s drawing of the arm, “I would guess that it is some sort of hybridization.  You did not see the shoulder?”  
  
“No,” Steve said, shuddering.  He had not seen it, but it couldn’t be good, could it.    
  
“No matter,” Erskine continued, “it could not have been grafted on, because there is no living creature in the world that naturally bears such an arm. This is the work of Johann Schmidt.”  
  
“What?” Steve said, startled to hear the name of the man they’d just been speculating about. “Why?  I thought he was some kind of botanist.”  
  
Erskine scoffed, “No, what gave you that idea?”  
  
Steve didn’t feel like explaining.  
  
“Schmidt is one of the most amazing intellects I have encountered” Erskine said, “but completely amoral and sociopathic, with gross delusions of grandeur. This transformation of a man’s arm into a dragon’s has his mark all over it.  He is obsessed with the stuff of legends.  Atlantis, the gods, ancient stories of mythical creatures, the philosopher’s stone, the elixir vitae, you name it, Schmidt is trying to discover it. He has been all over the world, tracking down stories of dragons.  In my opinion, they are imaginary creatures, born out of wishful thinking.  But Schmidt seems to have realized that a great part of my procedure is based on the mind’s ability to bend reality.  Somehow he convinced this man’s arm to become part dragon.”  
  
Steve stared at Erskine.  Erskine stared back.  “What? You think this is science?”  
  
“What do you mean? If it isn’t science, what is it?” Steve said, more than a little stunned by what he was hearing.  
  
“Alchemy.  Sorcery. Transmutation.  Take your pick,” Erskine laughed.     
  
“But — you’re a scientist — aren’t you?” Steve asked.  
  
“Yes, indeed I am,” Erskine said.  “But even I must recognize the boundaries of what science can prove or disprove using the rigors of the scientific method.  My procedure is so risky because it does not produce replicable results.  Every individual responds somewhat differently to the treatments.  You, my boy, are the poster child.”  
  
“Why?” Steve said.  
  
“Because you had it in you,” Erskine said, leaning over to poke him on the chest.  “This is your potential, who you were meant to be — Destined.  By Fate.”  
  
“Are you trying to tell me Bucky is meant to be a monster?” Steve said, getting angry.  
  
“No, no,” Erskine said.  “Your friend was in quite a different situation when Schmidt and Zola went to work on him.  You say he cannot speak — Ivchenko may have convinced him he is not human.  If that’s the case, then the procedure would not have produced human results.  The mind reworks the body according to what it believes is true.  They never should have used Ivchenko on him first, the fools…” Erskine muttered. “Then there is also the problem of his captivity, his stress at being held by enemies, and what they might be doing to him, or making him do.  His arm is a show of defiance.  It is quite beautiful, is it not?”  
  
Steve stared at the drawing he’d made.  The dragon arm was like something out of a fairy tale.  Steve could imagine such an arm curled protectively around a gleaming hoard of treasure.  He could imagine the arm gathered close as a great dragon soared through the sky.  Bucky would have loved that idea, riches galore, no need to slave away his life to put food on the table.  Steve imagined Bucky dreaming of the ability to fly away with Steve to some paradise of their own creation… yes, Steve could see why Bucky’s mind would produce a dragon arm.  
  
“But how?” Steve asked.  
  
“The same way I treated you.  Not exactly the same, but… Schmidt is still scouring the world for new psychotropics, badgering the chemists to bring him their finds, but, essentially, our work involves empowering the body to become what the mind dictates. Schmidt and Zola seem to have employed Ivchenko, without realizing that he is so effective precisely because he is skilled at hypnotizing his subjects into experiencing a reality they are already ready to accept.”  
  
“That’s not right,” Steve said.  “He made me forget Bucky!”  
  
“That he did.  He made you forget the man you were sick with worry over for losing.  He made you forget all the times you feared for your friend’s life.  He made you forget the pain you felt every day, the life you built together that Barnes walked away from every time he went to work.”  
  
Erskine pierced Steve with his gaze, and Steve cringed. Erskine wasn’t accusing him, but what he was saying was still hard to hear.  “You’re saying I wanted to forget him?”  
  
“No,” Erskine said, more gently.  “What I mean to say is that Ivchenko had no trouble in wiping your slate clean, because you were very troubled when he found you.  When a person is already in turmoil, it is that much easier for him to send the mind into a dulled state, where all the rough edges have been filed away. That is what he did to you.  And that is what he has attempted to do to your friend — with much less success.”  
  
“You think he hasn’t succeeded?” Steve asked.  “But you just said, he convinced Bucky into growing a dragon arm.”  
  
“That is not precisely what I said,” Erskine laughed, “but something along those lines.  As an undercover agent, Barnes has had to hide his true thoughts, his identity, his authentic self — so it is easy to convince him that he is unable to speak.  He has dedicated his life to a dangerous and unpleasant job — so it is easy to keep him in a limbo between home and where his superiors wish him to be.  And secretly, he desired to mar his beautiful appearance — thus the arm of a monster clings to his body — something he secretly wanted despite the fact that it now terrifies and disgusts him.  Still, it is very beautiful — because in his heart, he does not really believe that he should be ugly.  Your Barnes is a complex and contradictory man, is he not?”  
  
“He is,” Steve said.  Erskine seemed to have figured out that Steve and Bucky were more than friends — but as long as Erskine did not condemn them, Steve would not deny it.    
  
“If we can bring him home, can you cure the arm?” Steve asked.    
  
“Why would I do that? It is a miracle, a creation of true beauty!” Erskine exclaimed.  “But, if he wished it, I suppose we could try.  I must warn you though, it could lead to him losing the arm entirely.”  
  
“That’ll be up to him to decide,” Steve said.    
  
Erskine continued to chew his breakfast while Steve was lost in thought.  
  
“Professor, what do you think Johann Schmidt is looking for?”  Steve asked.  
  
“Power.  Immortality.  What does anyone look for?” Erskine replied without looking up.  
  
“Why doesn’t he have his own dragon arm?” Steve mused.  
  
“How do you know he doesn’t?” Erskine said, ringing the dinner bell.  “Angie! More toast, bitte!”  
  
Angie came with the toast, and another big bowl of oatmeal for Steve. “Thanks, Angie,” he said.    
  
She winked at him.  “Sir,” she said, as she flounced back into the kitchen.    
  
“I must admit,” Erskine said, “I am relieved to hear you say that you would let Barnes make his own choice about the arm.”  
  
“Of course I would!” Steve said. “It’s his arm!”  
  
“But some would rush to the conclusion that he is out of his mind,” Erskine said. “Some might even wonder if some of the murders had been committed by your friend — albeit under the control of our troublesome colleagues.”  
  
“They have to be stopped,” Steve said grimly. Steve could not guarantee that he would be able to control his actions if they hurt Bucky — any more than they already had.    
  
“I see murder in your eyes,” Erskine said.  He stopped eating, put down his cutlery, and met Steve’s gaze seriously. “Is that how you will make use of this new body — to kill your enemies?”  
  
Steve doubted they would have any qualms about turning the tables on him, if he fell into their power.  “I don’t want to kill them,” Steve finally admitted, “though I’m sure death is better than they deserve! But they need to be stopped, and they need to be brought to justice.  So many bad things are done by desperate people, who get confused or go down the wrong path in life, but, these men, they just seem to be pure evil inside.”  
  
“Evil,” Erskine said. “Very scary word, hm? Can you picture it, my friend, with your artist’s inner eye? Can you picture the men who would do these things, how their appearance might grow to reflect their hearts were they to undergo these procedures?”  
  
“What would a man look like,” Steve mused, “if the evil in his heart was made visible for all to see…”  
  
“You have seen the files,” Erskine said, “the body parts that have been scattered around Cleveland like gruesome trophies, skin turned leathery and red…”  
  
“You think those transformations happened while the victims were still alive?” Steve asked, shuddering.    
  
“Who knows?” he said, going back to his breakfast. “Why lop them off? Maybe they grow new ones.  But there is no point indulging in rank speculation.  If Ness and Miss Carter do succeed in bringing these men to justice, I will be very eager to look over their notes.”  
  
Hours passed. Natasha finished dancing and joined Steve for lunch.  Steve tried to paint a little in the afternoon, but didn’t get much done. His thoughts were plagued with nightmare images, hellish faces from Brueghel and Bosch and every artist tormented by thoughts of eternal torture.    
  
Peggy came home to report that she had had some luck tracing Schmidt’s travels, proving that he had set foot in both New York and Cleveland several times over the last few years.  
  
It was precious little to go on.  No world traveller could hope to avoid setting foot in New York, a primary metropolis of the world, even had they wanted to.  Cleveland too was an important city, home to industrialists, financiers, and millionaires of every stripe.    
  
But even if they proved Zola and Pierce and Schmidt knew one another, or even, if they were working together —  what of it? They were colleagues, all men of science.  Associating with one another meant nothing, unless they were linked to the murders.    
  
Steve lay at last on his bed, trying in vain to fall into that restless slumber from which he could reach out to Bucky. Steve’s heart ached, his body felt hollow — his soul cried out for its mate.    
  
Long past midnight, Steve finally drifted into sleep, calling out to Bucky with every fiber of his being.    
  
Bucky didn’t come.    
  
Steve saw no reason to get out of bed, burying his head under the covers as dawn crept across the sky.    
  
And then it struck — howling like a freight train, agony tore through his brain, cramping his jaw so hard he knew his teeth would break — straining every muscle in his body as he fought the excruciating grip —  
  
Bucky’s throes of torment tore through Steve, his inarticulate wailing shattered Steve’s own head as he pleaded for it to stop —  
  
not knowing what was happening, not knowing where he was or who he was, what he’d done to deserve such pain —  
  
reducing him to nothing more than anguished nerves, groveling for reprieve, willing to do or say anything, just to make it stop —  
  
and then it stopped.  
  
Steve was empty, reeling, alone, his frayed nerves twitching at the terrible memory of fire.    
  
They had done this.  To Bucky.    
  
They couldn’t.  Not again.  Whatever it was they’d just done — it was monstrous.  It was evil. It had to be stopped.    
  
Steve would do whatever it took so that would never happen again.    
  
He ran all the way to the Soldier’s Home, and when he arrived he wasn’t even out of breath.  


	19. The Search

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve searches for Bucky at the Soldier's Home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that several new warnings are added for mistreatment of mental patients. Please take care while reading if you are triggered by poor treatment of mental patients. I've tried not to be too graphic, but some of the subject matter is harsh no matter how you talk about it.

If anyone had told Steven Grant Rogers that he would be able to run at top speed for nearly an hour without stopping, he would have laughed them out of town.  Just a few months ago, Steve had driven to the Soldier’s Home with Natasha, and now, he had run the same route with no sense of over-exertion.   
  
He arrived at the Home a little more clear-headed than he had been when he charged out of Natasha’s house.  Peggy was right: he needed a plan.    
  
He had left Euclid Street just as the sun was beginning to rise, and the day was only just beginning at the Soldiers Home.  Men were arriving to start the day shift, and Steve followed them to the locker rooms, which were adjacent to the institutional laundry.  Steve followed a group of men and copied their movements as they put on fresh uniforms, the loose white pants and jackets and caps of the hospital orderly.  Steve pulled his cap down over his eyes, and stashed his clothes in an empty locker without anyone’s name on it.    
  
“New guy?” one man called out, looking mildly at Steve.   
  
“Yeah, just started Monday,” Steve answered, trying to seem cool.   
  
“Forgot your loafers, huh?” the man joshed.  Most of the men were wearing slip on shoes without laces.    
  
“Oh!” Steve said, blushing.  “Yes, I did.”   
  
“Just stay off the violent ward,” the man laughed.  “Don’t want some loon throttling you with your own laces.”   
  
“No,” Steve laughed, shaking his head and feeling hollow as he feigned camaraderie.    
  
“The doctors ain’t too strict,” the man said.  “You ain’t getting fired over a pair of shoes.”   
  
“Pretty decent place,” Steve nodded.   
  
“It’s okay,” the man said, “gives me the creeps sometimes, when they’re empty behind the eyes, you know?”   
  
“Yeah, no kidding,” Steve said, and in that he was sincere.  He hated what Pierce had done to some of the men.  Surely there must be some better way to help them than to destroy the parts of the brain that gave them their unique humanity.   
  
What had Pierce done to Bucky? What was he doing right now? Steve had to find him.  The uncanny connection between them had not flared to life again after the searing pain from earlier that morning had ebbed away, but Steve had known, without a doubt, that Bucky was here.  He would get Bucky out, and away, safe, or die trying.   
  
As the morning progressed, a heavy sadness overwhelmed Steve.  All day he roamed the buildings of the Home, meeting man after man. Some of the men were deeply depressed, sitting listless near the sunny windows of the place.  Others had received “treatments” that left them without volition, empty bodies that shuffled from place to place as they were directed.   
  
At lunch, Steve mechanically ate a tray of food, barely noticing the bland, boiled potatoes, soggy vegetables, and tough meat. Steve and Bucky had never eaten like kings, but their mothers had taught them how to prepare food with care, and even though they’d never been talented cooks, they’d put a little effort into making their daily meals together.  Steve’s own mother, when she’d been alive, had taught him to eat a variety of different foods, because as a nurse she had learned that different foods provide different nourishment.  At Natasha’s house, of course, the expert kitchen staff had prepared feasts fit for royalty (which, in her way, Natasha was).  Steve had gotten used to good food.  Here, at the Home, he chewed and swallowed the flavorless stuff without enjoyment.  How could anyone hope to improve their health on such a diet?  Steve sighed as he realized that getting better was not the goal here — it was a place where troubled and debilitated men were sent to be forgotten.    
  
As the day progressed, Steve offered smiles and tried to help whenever he could. Some of the men smiled back, and it made Steve feel a little better.  Once he’d found Bucky, his second goal was to stop Pierce.  Maybe if Pierce were replaced, this Home would get a little bit better for the men who lived there. Maybe Natasha’s funding could put in place a board who would care about the humane treatment of mental patients. Steve didn’t know if that kind of improvement was possible at the institutional level, but he had to believe that well meaning doctors and nurses could do better.    Surely Pierce’s removal would at least put an end to such procedures as whatever had been done to Bucky that morning.   
  
The day wore on.  Outside, it was a bright March day, with a moist wind coming off the lake.  Patients stared out the windows at the greening grass.  Some played checkers.  Some sat listening to the radio.  Steve made the rounds, going from hall to hall, opening every door, trying to pay attention to whatever subtle inner sense might alert him to the tiniest clue that Bucky was near.    
  
By suppertime, Steve had scoured every dormitory from top to bottom.  He’d looked up and down all the halls of the medical wing.   He had even inspected the violent ward, looking through barred windows at patients in their straitjackets — a reminder of the night Bucky had turned up at Lernaean Labs.   Some men were strapped down to their beds.  But none of them were Bucky.   He didn’t know whether to be relieved or dismayed.    
  
Steve had visited the staff rooms, the kitchens, the laundry, the locker rooms, but he hadn’t found anything of note.  In the front building, he visited all the treatment rooms on the first floor, even the ones that made his skin crawl with the various devices and implements Pierce recommended.  On the second floor of that building, Pierce and the other doctors of the Home kept their offices, as well as interview rooms for families who were considering sending their relatives to the Home.      
  
An itchy sensation bothered Steve while he was in the building, even though he found nothing. He frowned as he thought it over.  Chewing another bad meal at the staff table in the cafeteria, he thought over the various buildings of the Home and realized there was one place he hadn’t looked.   
  
The front building had a basement, but Steve hadn’t found the way down.  As he thought about it, he had the strongest sensation that Bucky was there.  The sense of an underground enclosure, the damp smell of a basement, the dimness of artificial light — the sense images swarmed over Steve until he was certain he would find Bucky there.    
  
Darkness fell over the buildings of the Soldiers’ Home, but Steve would wait until late at night. After the second shift went home, the night shift would arrive, and he would wait to make his move after they settled in.  Steve followed the flow of workers back to the locker room at the end of the second shift, and luckily, his clothes were still in the locker where he’d stowed them.  He threw his scrubs into the laundry as the other men did, and walked out with them into the night.  It was raw and cold, but Steve didn’t feel it.  He would wait just a little longer, and then sneak back to the front building, figure out a way into the basement.    
  
The graveyard shift was thinly staffed. A skeleton crew of nurses and one or two doctors were still on call, but the buildings were mostly empty.  The place was eerily silent, almost as if no one there dared to make a sound.    
  
Steve bided his time until it was long past midnight.  He snuck around to the back of the front building, and there, as expected was a coal cellar door, but it was padlocked.  For a moment he panicked, then he noticed how old the door was.  He grabbed the lock in his fist, braced himself, and pulled.  With a cry of metal, the rusty screws holding the padlock to the door sheered off.  Cautiously, Steve eased the door open and crept down the stairs.   
  
The basement was just as dark and dank as Steve had expected.  Steve let his eyes adjust to the near darkness, surprised at how well he could see. He didn’t know what he expected to find, but it seemed to be an ordinary institutional basement, with storage rooms full of cleaning supplies, stacks of old furniture, and boxes of files.    
  
The building furnace took up the central part of the basement.  Most of the buildings at the Home had coal-fired furnaces, some sharing heat and hot water with central boilers, but this building had its own furnace that didn’t run on coal. It seemed to be new and in good repair, covered with gauges all with needles that read in the optimum range.    
  
Steve had covered almost the whole basement, but still hadn’t found Bucky.  He was sure Bucky had to be there somewhere!  
  
Farthest away from the cellar doors he’d entered by, Steve found another row of doors, like the storage rooms he’d already searched.  He cautiously opened the first door.  The knob turned in his hand, and the door swung open.  The room beyond was pitch black.  Steve felt for a light switch, and finally found a pull chain on a light fixture high up near the door.  He pulled, and a dim bulb lit a bare room, empty except for the metal frame of a cot.    
  
Steve left the light on and turned to the next door.  It too was empty, but Steve was horrified to see a horrible dark brown stain on the floor, which couldn’t have been anything but old blood.    
  
When Steve opened the third door, he expected another cramped cell.  Instead, it was a small lab, with a bright overhead light,  cabinets, a microscope, and various other implements on the counters. Worst, was the steel operating table in the center of the room, with leather straps dangling from each corner.    There was a bad smell in the room Steve recognized. It smelled like the angry, abused animals at Lernaean Lab, but this room smelled more human.    
  
Shuddering, Steve turned off the light and investigated the fourth room.  The overhead light threw stark shadows onto a chair, sturdy, with straps to hold down someone’s arms, to bind someone’s legs, and a terrible crown to fit around someone’s head;  wires led from the crown to a generator in the corner, and Steve understood what he was seeing.  The place smelled of urine, and ozone, and singed hair. They had used this thing on Bucky just that morning.    
  
Steve backed out of the room, nauseated, furious, terrified.  What would be left of Bucky after these monsters had had their way with him?   
  
Desperate, Steve flung the next door wide.  And there, in the darkness, on a cot, lay Bucky.   
  
“Bucky!” Steve said, in a loud whisper.  “I found you!  Let’s get you out of here!”   
  
Bucky lay still, staring at the ceiling.  He made no move at the sound of Steve’s voice.    
  
“Bucky?” Steve said.  He stepped forward, and shook Bucky’s shoulder.  Bucky didn’t respond, just lay there, staring vacantly at nothing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical note: in this story I've been referring to the Ohio Soldiers' Home. It is entirely fictional and not meant to represent any real location or institution. For the purposes of this story it is located about an hour's drive outside Cleveland.


	20. the escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Steve get away from the Soldier's Home.

Steve stared down at Bucky and wondered what he could do next.  Bucky was no longer dressed in the dark clothes he’d worn when he’d broken in Steve’s room; instead, he was barefoot, wearing the thin cotton shirt and trousers that the rest of the patients wore at the home.  His skin was cold and clammy to the touch.  His eyes wouldn’t focus on Steve’s face.    
  
As Bucky lay there, unresponsive, Steve got a good look at the strange, silvery arm.  It ended in sharp claws, but the hand was not unlike Bucky’s other hand, the same size and shape it had always been, but now, armored with fine, metallic scales that grew in size as they climbed up the arm, vanishing under the short sleeve of the sweat-stained shirt Bucky had on.    Steve was curious to see Bucky’s shoulder, but it wasn’t the time or the place, and he knew better than to trespass against Bucky’s modesty without his consent.    
  
“Bucky, please,” Steve repeated, over and over.  He tried chafing Bucky’s hands between his own, but felt no grip in return.    
  
After a minute or so with no response, Steve began to make other plans.  If Bucky couldn’t leave under his own steam, Steve would carry him.   Such a plan would have been unthinkable with Steve’s old body, but now, he was more than strong enough to carry his friend.    
  
He reached out first for the arm.  Bucky’s hand was limp, and the strange arm was weirdly cold — but in fact, not much colder than the rest of him.  Steve hoisted Bucky into a sitting position and rested Bucky’s head against his shoulder for a moment.  As he held him there, readying himself to stand, Bucky made a noise — a high, desperate whine from deep in his throat.    
  
“It’s okay Bucky, I’ve got you now,” Steve murmured.  He hoped his comforting tones would carry through into Bucky’s mind.    
  
Steve shifted his weight onto his legs and stood.  What should have been a serious exertion was no problem, and Steve easily hefted Bucky’s weight over his shoulder.  He paused for a moment in amazement to think how easy it was to lift the man who had carried him most of his life.  Bucky was thinner now, due to his captivity, but he wasn’t skin and bones, and it made Steve proud to think that at last, his own body would pass such an important test.  
  
Steve stepped outside the room and came face to face with a glowering man in a doctor’s lab coat.    
  
“Stand aside,” Steve ordered, before the other man could speak.  “This man has been abducted and is not here under proper authority.”  
  
“I did not come here to dispute with you about trifles, Mr. Rogers,” the man said, with a cultured German accent.  “You will not leave with Barnes.  In fact you will not leave at all.”  
  
Steve felt righteous anger boiling up inside him.  Holding Bucky a little more closely, he balanced on his toes.  “You gonna stop me?” he challenged, every bit the Brooklyn street punk he’d been his whole life, but finally, with the strength and bodily endurance to back up his moxie.    
  
“Yes,” the man said simply, and aimed a vicious kick at Steve’s knee.  
  
The low blow would have been an excellent way to bring Steve down catastrophically, but Steve had never fought by Queensbury rules.  Street fighting had trained him well —  the young thugs of Brooklyn had no holds barred, and fought to win. Disgracing an opponent by any means was the goal, and maiming was commonplace.    
  
Steve nimbly danced away from the man’s kick, and Steve’s mouth went into gear.  He’d never had brute strength to rely on, so he’d had to develop other tools in his arsenal.  Steve hadn’t won every fight he started, not by a long shot, but his mouth had been his single greatest weapon — taunting his adversaries into blind rage and then, out-thinking them.  
  
“Looks like my friend was too much for you,” Steve said, dodging the angry German’s blows.  “He ran away from you and found me, again and again.”  Steve was hedging, extrapolating from what he’d seen in his visions.  
  
“He sought you out on my orders,” the German said with a sneer.    
  
“I’m not that interesting,” Steve said. Bucky wasn’t too heavy for Steve, but he was unwieldy, and it was difficult to maneuver so that the German didn’t land a blow.  Finally there was an opening and Steve darted past his opponent, only to have another kick trip him up.  Steve stumbled, but didn’t drop Bucky — then the German delivered a heavy blow to Bucky’s midback, enraging Steve.  
  
“Leave him alone!” Steve roared.  “Just let us go!  You’ve already lost!”  
  
“Already lost?” the man laughed, pulling himself upright.  “Quite the contrary.  You have no idea the extent of our plans, the achievements we’ve already realized, the goals we are so near to bringing into reality!”  
  
“Piggybacking on other men’s successes!” Steve shot back.  
  
“You are merely a copy of Erskine’s success with me, not the other way round,” the man asserted, with a malevolent glint in his eye.  
  
“Schmidt?” Steve asked.    
  
“Yes,” Schmidt affirmed.  “I am the first great success story in the new beginning of the human race— or should I say, superhuman — ubermenschen.”  
  
“Congratulations,” Steve said drily, still focused on getting away.  Even though he had made it out of the room, he couldn’t turn his back on Schmidt, exposing Bucky to attack.    
  
“Congratulate your friend,” Schmidt said silkily.  “That is, if he ever regains the capacity for independent thought.”  
  
Steve said nothing, but he thought he felt Bucky stir, and angling slight away from Schmidt, he began to write with his finger onto Bucky’s back.  JBB + SGR.  JBB + SGR.    
  
Then, like a miracle, he felt four taps on his own back, where Bucky’s arms hung down. When Bucky had turned 16, too old for the orphanage,  Sarah Rogers had invited her son’s best friend into her home, tiny and cramped though it was.  She slept on a cot behind a quilt; Steve and Bucky slept on the floor, beside their threadbare couch.  Silence was required so that Sarah could get her rest before going in to her nursing shifts, so Bucky and Steve had developed a silent code of traced letters and coded taps.  The four taps stood, in elegant simplicity, for forever.    
  
If Bucky still knew that code, then Steve was not too late. He was hurt, but he was still in there.  He was still Bucky.    
  
Those four taps forged steel inside Steve.  His strength, which had not yet begun to wear out, was renewed.    
Somehow Schmidt could sense that something had changed.    
  
“This was a trap, you know,” he began.  “We knew that you were here, all day.  Do you think we would not notice you? When Miss Rushman invited Erskine to Cleveland, this plan was set in motion.  The cogs have turned.  Now we have not only Barnes, one of Zola’s less inspiring subjects, but also yourself, Erkine’s latest attempt, for our continued study.  You know, of course, that nothing has meaning but the work, for the betterment of mankind.”  
  
Steve felt a weird sensation, like some sort of slowness creeping through his veins.  Nothing has meaning but the work. The work. The good work.  All for the betterment of mankind.  
  
Steve felt the tension flow away from his limbs.  Everything would be fine.  He had Bucky back. That was important.  The work, the betterment of mankind, what could be more important.  
  
Tap, tap, tap, tap, Bucky tapped on his back.  Such a simple code was written deep inside Steve’s brain, far deeper than the trigger phrases Ivchenko and Zola had attempted to inscribe onto Steve’s stressed and grieving heart.     
  
Steve wondered what Schmidt would do, if Steve seemed to comply with his commands.  He felt Bucky make a fist against his back, three taps of his toe against Steve’s thigh, and a quick slash down with one finger.  Bucky had cued that to him in so many fights, tapping as though impatient, giving Steve the count to drop.  Steve instinctively counted it back, his hands flexed around Bucky’s ribs, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.    
  
Steve dropped and Bucky landed on his feet, but instead of whirling around to spring at Schmidt, he launched himself onward into the basement, toward the furnace, his left arm flexed.    
  
Schmidt seemed to realized Bucky’s plan at the last split second, as Bucky’s silver hand grasped a hot water pipe and directed the scalding spray at Schmidt.  Schmidt screamed, clawing at his face, which seemed to melt away.    
  
Steve watched in disgust as Schmidt’s face peeled off, falling to the floor in a flaccid lump.    
  
Schmidt’s whole head was reduced to a leathery, grinning red skull, scarred beyond human recognition, an exterior sign of his inner evil, his rage and twisted ideas.    
  
“You cannot defeat me!” Schmidt screamed, his fleshless lips pulled back from grinning teeth.  His eyes had been scalded, but he seemed to be quickly recovering.    
  
“Good luck with that,” Steve said, but he knew that the best plan was for Steve and Bucky to get away now, to regroup and worry about Schmidt later.    
  
Steve turned to grab Bucky and lead him out of the basement, but Bucky was doing something to the furnace — he turned a series of knobs all the way clockwise, then he grabbed for Steve’s hand and pulled him away at top speeds.    
  
Steve didn’t look back.  He didn’t think that Schmidt could follow, blinded as he had been, and whatever Bucky had just done, it looked serious.    
  
Bucky and Steve pelted out of the basement, up the cellar stairs and out into the night.  
  
Bucky made a two handed sign, one Steve loved from so many birthdays.   Bucky stretched his mouth wide and made the sign again, bigger, more emphatically.  
  
Steve got it.  
  
“Fire! Fire!” he shouted.  “Fire in the front building! Everyone out!”  
  
There were no lights on in the building, but Steve pounded the front doors anyway, till Bucky pulled him away. With a loud thump, the furnace in the basement exploded.  Soon, flames could be seen licking behind the windows.  No patients were housed in the front building, and the offices were usually vacant at that hour of the night.    
  
Steve and Bucky stood back against a milling crowd of staff members as a fire engine arrived. The crew broke the windows and tried to douse the blaze.  One orderly looked askance at Bucky, who was still clothed like a patient, but Steve had given him his jacket to cover the arm, and Steve glared the orderly down.  He had to take back his unkind thoughts when the orderly came back a few minutes later with a blanket and a pair of cloth shoes.  
  
“Thanks,” Steve said, abashed.     
   
The man just nodded.    
  
Two local policemen showed up.  Steve stepped forward, pulling Bucky with him.  
  
“Officers, this man is Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes.  He’s been listed as missing for months, and he’s been held here in secret, against his will.”  
  
The policemen looked at each other, and Steve could see that they recognized Bucky from the bulletins Ness had periodically sent out.  Just then, Ness’s car squealed to a halt behind the police car and Ness stepped out, with Peggy right behind him.    
  
“Ness,” the lead cop said, with a slight nod.    
  
“These men work for me,” Ness said, pointing at Steve and Bucky.  “I have a warrant for the arrest of Alexander Pierce. Care to come along with me to his place?”  
  
Peggy gave Steve a bright look, and Steve led Bucky to Ness’s car.   They piled into the back seat, and Steve felt truly hopeful for the first time in months.    
  
During the drive to Pierce’s house, Bucky hid his left arm beneath the blanket and spelled on his own leg, SGR, SGR, over and over, while Steve tap tap tap tapped, longing to hear Bucky’s voice.  He still hadn’t spoken a word.    
  
Peggy glared daggers at Pierce while he was led away in handcuffs.   Bucky’s hand clenched into a fist.  Then lightly, he tapped his upper lip.  
  
“Right in the kisser,” Steve whispered, and the corner of Bucky’s mouth twitched into a tiny smile.    
  
Steve and Bucky collapsed together in Steve’s room when they finally got home in the early morning, curled together on a soft mattress, sheltered by warm blankets.  Bucky still didn’t want Steve touching his left arm, but Steve laid his head on Bucky’s right shoulder and fell asleep faster than he ever had in his life.  
  
In his dreams, he saw Alexander Pierce, smiling, as his attorney bailed him out.  Ness stood fuming, Peggy behind him, glaring daggers.  Steve felt Bucky in his dream, his presence solid beside him, though neither of them were visible to Steve’s dreaming gaze.  Bucky was standing to Steve’s right side, and while Steve was still putting it together that Bucky hadn’t turned his arm away, he felt the cool silver hand grasp his own.    
  
He felt their arms lift.  
  
They drew closer to Pierce, floating like phantoms, their hands laced together and stretched out before them, like something out of a horror story.  Their joined hands touched Pierce, and drifted through his body, seizing his beating heart.  
  
The smile fell from Pierce’s face.  He glanced around, then turned to his attorney. “Do you feel a draft?”  
  
Bucky closed his fist, Steve’s hand held in his own, and Pierce’s heart shuddered to a halt.  
  
Pierce collapsed, a look of surprise on his face.  Bucky gazed calmly at the body, crumpled on the floor of the Cleveland police station. The room became vague and dim as Steve drifted deeper into a dreamless sleep.  ****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky use home signs in this chapter. 
> 
> This is an AU, but in canon, I would strongly doubt that Steve would have learned ASL as a kid. He was born during a time when sign language was stigmatized, and since he is not completely deaf he would have been strongly discouraged from learning it. For example, the Lexington School, founded in 1867, was a pure oral school for the deaf in New York -- meaning they did not use signs there at all, and would likely have punished students caught speaking sign in Steve's day. 
> 
> I love to wonder about the ways Steve and Bucky would have communicated. My best guess is that they would have developed a tactile language for communicating silently in the dark.... there is also Steve's canon bout with rheumatic fever, a complication of strep, and the treatment was to lay flat in a dark room in order to avoid damage to the heart, tho of course Steve's heart was damaged anyway. :)
> 
> ... It's also interesting to note that skinny Steve in canon, like many hard of hearing folks, has a loud voice and what's interpreted as a brusque manner.


	21. Sleeping It Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Steve rest up after their adventures.

   
***  
Steve opened his eyes every time Bucky shifted.  They were lying, tangled together in a nicer bed than either of them had ever known, Natasha’s fine cotton sheets smooth as silk against their skin, the pillows perfectly fluffed beneath their heads, the covers heavy and warm, swaddling them in a cavern of comfort.    
  
Steve woke, just enough to register that he was not dreaming, Bucky was safe in his arms, both of them were safe, surrounded by friends, in Natasha’s house.    
  
Bucky made a noise, his feet kicking a little.  Steve snuggled closer, pressing his face against the back of Bucky’s neck, plastering himself to Bucky’s back.  Bucky heaved a sigh and relaxed, falling back into a deeper sleep.  Steve wasn’t tired, but he didn’t really want to get up yet either.  He would sleep until Bucky was ready to get up, and that would be just fine.   
  
They slept the day away, the March sun climbing up into the sky. Steve’s room was on the garden side of the house, away from street noises, so it was peaceful and quiet all day, nothing but the trilling of birds to disturb the quiet.  Bucky slumbered on.   
  
After dark, ironically, Steve’s stomach began to grumble.  He had to acknowledge that in terms of his health, needing big meals on a regular schedule was the least he had ever had to worry about.  Still, his old metabolism had allowed him to subsist on oatmeal and cabbage soup — no more.  His stomach rumbled loudly again, and he knew he shouldn’t put off eating any longer.   
  
He pulled away from Bucky, who rolled and latched onto him again without opening his eyes. Steve stared at his beloved face and kissed his forehead as he snuggled close. They were finally, truly, together, after so long.  Steve remembered everything — their childhood, running up and down the streets and neighborhoods of Brooklyn, the years they’d lived together in their little cold water flat on Montague street. He remembered Bucky’s sister Rebecca — he’d danced with her at her wedding!  He remembered Bucky’s early graduation from high school and his quick career progress with the New York Police Department.  He hadn’t known Bucky’s co-workers because of the nature of Bucky’s undercover work in vice; it boggled his mind to think he had finally met Tim Dugan and hadn’t recognized him.    
  
“Sssseeef” Bucky whispered.  His voice was still gone, but the unvoiced consonants in Steve’s name didn’t need a voice.    
  
“Hey Buck,” Steve smiled. “i would say good morning but I think it’s closer to supper time.”   
  
Bucky cringed against him and squirmed deeper into his covers.   
  
“Okay, but you have to at least let me ring for some food.  I’m starving!  Aren’t you hungry?”   
  
Bucky shook his head no, but Steve didn’t believe him.   
  
“Listen, I’m just going to ask them to make some potato soup.  You can eat as much as you want, okay?  It’ll be easy on your stomach.”   
  
Bucky held still and pretended he hadn’t heard Steve at all.    
  
Steve ooched a little away from Bucky and reached an arm outside the covers.  The air in the room was pleasant, not icy like it would have been at home in their Brooklyn Heights flat.  Steve found the pull cord on the wall for the butler’s bell and pulled it; distantly, he could hear a ring he never could have hoped to hear before.  He laughed, thinking how he would never in his life have expected a life so luxurious that he could pull a cord on the wall to have someone come running.  
  
In just over one minute, a polite knock sounded at the door.   
  
“Come in,” Steve said, not bothering to let go of Bucky.  Everyone in the house, by now, knew the depth of devotion between them.  Besides, Steve had found a set of blue and white striped pajamas laid out for him in his bathroom, which he’d put on before falling into bed earlier in the day, and he felt practically as well-dressed as Howard Stark.    
  
Angie stuck her head into the room. “You rang, sir?”   
  
Steve was never going to get tired of her cheery New York Italian accent here in the wilds of Cleveland, Ohio.    
  
“Angie, could you please ask Lorraine to send up some hearty soup, maybe potato? Bucky’s not sure what his stomach will stand, but I could eat a horse.”   
  
“Right away, sir,” Angie answered, with a bob.  “Oh, and Stevie, I’m just so happy you got your fella back.” Angie met his eye with a solemn smile.   
  
Steve felt a blush warming his face, just as her friendship and support warmed his heart.  “Thanks, Angie.”   
  
Bucky peeped over the edge of the covers to get a glimpse of Angie, pursed his lips and made a wolf whistle.   
  
“Back atcha, dollface,” Angie retorted with a wink, and swished out of the room, cuter than a button in her trim maid’s outfit.    
  
“One minute, okay, Buck? I gotta hit the facilities.”   
  
Bucky reluctantly let go of Steve, who bounded across the bedroom to the door of his own bath.  He washed his face and hands and felt a little more awake.   
  
“You need to wash up?” Steve asked.   
  
Bucky stretched, but sat up and went to the bathroom.  Steve could hear him running the water at the sink until it was hot.  The plumbing in the mansion was top notch and the hot running water still seemed like the height of luxury to Steve.    
  
There was a big porcelain bath tub in there, outfitted for a shower, but Steve could hear Bucky splashing in the sink, cleaning off with a wash cloth the way they’d done at home, except once a week, when they’d haul out the tub.   
  
A wave of love crested over Steve, overwhelming in its intensity.  How many times had he almost lost Bucky? How unlikely was it that he had gotten Bucky back  — not only this time — but the time before, when neither of them had even known each other’s names, couldn’t recognize each other’s faces, and didn’t remember a moment of their life together? Ivchenko and Pierce and Zola and Schmidt had stolen away their lives, and yet they’d still found one another, gravitated toward each other and held on. Those jerks had thought they could tear Bucky away from Steve with their science and their torture and their tricks, but they couldn’t.  Steve and Bucky had brought them down, and Steve knew they’d never again let anything keep them apart.    
  
Bucky came out of the bathroom, clean shaven, with his long hair combed back behind his ears.  He looked tired, a little thin, with dark circles under his eyes, but he was still the most beautiful thing Steve had ever seen.    
  
“Come here you,” Steve ordered, and Bucky came to sit down on Steve’s side of the bed.    
  
Steve ran his fingers tenderly through Bucky’s wet locks.  “You need a barber,” he said.   
  
Bucky shrugged. It was crazy how easily Steve understood him, even without words.   
  
“You’ll start a new craze.  All the poets and the jazz musicians will grow their hair long from now on,” Steve said happily.   
  
Bucky nodded with a serene little smile.   
  
Steve had to kiss him.  That smug, happy smile proclaimed James Buchanan Barnes the luckiest man in the universe — Steve had to kiss him there just to prove him right.   
  
Bucky’s lush lips were Steve’s favorite thing in the universe; the soft skin behind his ear; the firm muscles over his ribs; the shape of his hands; the heft of his thighs.  There was nothing about Bucky Barnes that wasn’t perfection to Steve.  He held back, though, from touching the arm, not wanting to startle Bucky or make him feel like an object of curiosity.    
  
Bucky was satisfied to let Steve kiss him. Steve remembered that they would often switch between who was in charge.  Sometimes, Bucky just wanted to be taken care of, after jobs for the police that he couldn’t really talk about.  And other times, he came home and kissed Steve like there were no other human beings left in the world, like he was starving and only the touch of Steve would provide nourishing sustenance.     
  
Steve had always been more than a little conflicted about Bucky’s work.  He felt awful about what Erskine had said, that Steve’s ambivalence and worry about Bucky had given Ivchenko the chink in Steve’s armor, letting the hypnotist in to wipe away the stresses Steve harbored around Bucky’s dangerous job, which, as much as Steve was ashamed to admit it, he found degrading.  Steve respected Bucky more than any human being except possibly his own mother, but he didn’t like seeing Bucky pushed around and used, certainly not for sex.  It was a huge stumbling block for Steve, one he couldn’t get over.  They’d lived together for years, been in love and devoted to each other since they were hardly more than boys, but Steve didn’t want to be with Bucky “like that” — in the way that had been cheapened by commerce and lust and the touches of nasty men.    
  
Now, Steve saw the error of his ways.  He was so, so grateful to have Bucky back.  No matter what Bucky may have done, no matter what had been done to him, the only important thing to Steve was Bucky, Bucky himself.  Steve had seen visions where Bucky considered himself a monster.  Steve knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that wasn’t true.  Bucky was the best guy Steve had ever known.  Just to be near him was a blessing.  To be kissed by him, loved by him — Steve had forgotten everything, and in forgetting, the slate had been wiped clean for Bucky and Steve to start over.  The doors had been opened for  Steve to feel blisses he’d never allowed himself to imagine.  The sordid, ugly things he’d shied away from in his fearful mind’s eye were purged away in a blaze of brilliant fire.    
  
Steve belonged heart, mind, body and soul, to Bucky, and he would prove it.   
  
A quiet tap at the door allowed Steve and Bucky to separate and compose themselves.  Steve crossed the room and opened the door this time.    
  
“Your supper, sirs,” Angie said.  “Unless you’ll be needing dessert?”   
  
“I wouldn’t say no,” Steve admitted.   
  
“Champagne?” Angie asked in her sweetest, most innocent voice.   
  
“Sure,” Steve said, laughing.   
  
“Right away, sirs,” Angie said, scampering.   
  
Bucky made a smooch in the air and rolled his eyes after Angie left.    
  
“You ain’t wrong,” Steve said.  Angie would be a catch for anyone interesting and clever enough to capture her attention.    
  
Lorraine had provided them with the richest, thickest most decadent potato soup Steve had ever tasted, thick with cheddar cheese, lumps of broccoli, and a delicious dusting of bacon, and it was served in enormous bowls that each would have served ten of Steve before.    
  
Bucky ate a little slower than Steve, savoring, and cautiously allowing his stomach to adapt to the rich food.  He didn’t seem to be having too much trouble, and his happy face told Steve he was enjoying every bite.   
  
They had only just finished the soup when Angie knocked again, bringing cake and champagne. It was a delicious, rich carrot cake with cream cheese icing, heavy with walnuts, and if Steve wasn’t mistaken, fortified with rum.    
  
“Cheers!” Angie said, after opening the champagne, and scampered away, shutting up the door to their room again.   
  
Steve cut a piece of cake and held it out to Bucky on his fork.  Bucky’s lush mouth closed around the fork and his eyes rolled back, closing.   
  
“Mmmm,” he moaned appreciatively.  It was the first sound he’d made since the high whimpers Steve had heard him make when he found him— and it reaffirmed, at least, that Bucky still had the vocal capacity for speech, even if he hadn’t yet begun to recover his words. Steve didn’t find it as frustrating as he might have expected.  He was murderously angry on Bucky’s behalf for what had been done to him, but he understood Bucky very well even without words.  They would get it all back, given time, Steve felt sure.   
  
Bucky’s moan of pleasure reverberated inside Steve, and the sight of Bucky’s beautiful lips and transported face made Steve’s body come to life.   
  
“Bucky, you’re so beautiful right now,” he whispered. “I’m so glad you’re back safe with me.”   
  
Bucky’s eyes opened with a hint of reproof.  He moved his left arm slightly away from Steve, frowning.   
  
“You got it all wrong, pal,” Steve denied.  “That arm don’t make you a monster.  Sure, it shows the guys who kidnapped you aren’t human, but what they did is no reflection on you.  Besides, I think it’s really beautiful.”   
  
Bucky snorted and turned his face away.   
  
“I do!” Steve retorted.  “Look, I’m the artist here, so I think I’m qualified to make aesthetic judgements.  It’s shaped just like your other arm, which is perfect, and the silver is practically like jewelry.  Don’t go to Paris with it or all the fancy French dames will want one.”  
  
Bucky rolled his eyes so hard Steve thought they would snap, and made a rude yammering gesture with his right hand.   
  
“It’s the truth, I swear to God.  You want I should ring for Martinelli to back me up?”   
  
Bucky shook his head, but gave in, smiling slightly.    
  
“All right, so we’re agreed, enough of that.  You’re still the handsomest mug in the place.”    
  
Bucky’s right hand gently traced Steve’s jaw, while he waggled his eyebrows.   
  
“I don’t even rate compared to you, Buck, and you know it.”   
  
Bucky gave an innocent look, and pretended not to be sure, which charmed Steve yet again.   
  
“Here, have a drink of champagne,” Steve prompted.  He reached around a brought the coupe from the night table to Bucky’s lips.  It sent Steve a frisson on want through Steve, holding the glass for Bucky while he peacefully sipped at the light gold, fizzy liquid.   
  
“You give me the shivers, Buck,” Steve whispered.    
  
Bucky opened his eyes and looked at Steve, his clear, pale blue eyes; there was nothing so certain in the world as the devotion Steve saw there.  Bucky didn’t need words to tell Steve how much he was loved, how absolute his trust, how deep his desire. Steve, with his new eyes, saw it as plainly as his old eyes always had.   
  
Somehow the coupe and the plate of cake floated back to the night table, delicacies hinting at a wedding feast.    
  
Bucky sank back and Steve fell into him, feasting on the perfection of his mouth, the soft, full lips, the sweet, seducing tongue.  Steve felt for skin, rucking up Bucky’s nightshirt and finding the silky, smooth heat of Bucky’s sides, tenderly stroking him.  All the evil that had been done to him, Steve would soothe away, by sheer force of will.  He pressed his body full against Bucky’s, both of them strong now, nearly the same size, but he still felt overwhelmed by being next to Bucky, gratitude at getting him back, relief and joy and the simple rightness of being together.  He wanted to lose himself in Bucky, wanted to make Bucky feel so good that the ecstasy would blot away the memory of pain.  His body surged against Bucky’s, moving in a dance that Bucky knew well.  Neither was the leader, neither followed — they were together, as one, and they shook in each other’s arms, achingly complete.    
  
They caught their breath, collapsed against the pillows, and when Steve opened his eyes again, Bucky was smiling.    
  
“Yeah, okay, I guess if you’re smug, you earned it,” Steve allowed, and smiled back.    
  
Now they were awake, full of energy and off the schedule of the rest of the house. When Steve checked his watch it was only half past eight.    
  
“You wanna get dressed, go downstairs?” Steve asked.    
  
Bucky closed his eyes and held still, but after a moment, he nodded.    
  
“Not if you’re not ready.”   
  
Bucky sighed and rolled his shoulders, and squinched up his face. He reached for Steve’s hand and Steve watched as he brought the left arm out from under the covers.  The light played on the silver scales, shiny but not perfectly reflective.  He held up his left hand, turned it so that Steve could see the play of muscle and tendon, and splayed out his fingers to display the claws.    
  
Steve moved his own hand up to mirror Bucky’s.  Slowly, Steve’s hand, the same as it had always been, maybe just slightly bigger, and Bucky’s, completely transformed, touched in the air above the blankets.  The hand was warm, not as cold as it had been before.    
  
“It’s a miracle,” Steve breathed.   
  
Bucky scoffed a little.   
  
 “Not, I mean, not what they did to you, but, it’s part of you.  Beautiful, like somehow, it’s always been part of you.”   
  
Bucky moved his fingers lightly against Steve’s, and with his clawed silvery index finger, lightly tapped Steve’s four times.    
  
Steve laughed and held tighter onto Bucky’s hand.   
  
“Absolutely, Bucky: forever.”   
  



	22. An evening in good company

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They talk to Ness.

The pajamas Natasha had provided were perfect for lounging about in the bedroom suite, and fine if Angie was bringing them room service, but to go downstairs to talk to Natasha and Peggy, Steve and Bucky wanted to put on regular clothes.  
  
Natasha had bought clothes for Steve, to fit his new size, and those clothes pretty much fit Bucky as well, though the pants were maybe an inch too long and the shirt a little tight around his strange new arm. Bucky raised a critical eyebrow at his own reflection.  
  
"You look swell," Steve said.  He smiled at Bucky and dusted an imaginary bit of lint off his right shoulder.    
  
Bucky rolled his eyes but stood back from the mirror and tilted his chin at Steve as if to say that Steve looked just as good.  They’d never had the money to spend on fine clothes made out of high quality material, but of course Natasha didn’t buy anything but the best.  The clothes weren’t fancy, and they weren’t tailored, but they were nicer than what they’d settled for most of their lives.  
  
They went down to the main drawing room, and found not only Natasha and Peggy, but also Eliot Ness and Professor Erskine.    
  
Ness stood up when they entered the room to shake their hands. Steve was now a good bit taller than Ness, which felt very strange. Peggy had said that Ness hadn’t been doing very well since his wife left him, but the events of the night before seemed to have been a turning point with him.  He seemed clear-headed and well to Steve.  
  
"You're looking good, Barnes," Ness said.  
  
“Yes, you are,” Erskine said, eyes bright.    
  
Bucky shook Ness's hand with a nod.    
  
“It’s good to have you back,” Ness said.  “Sorry we didn’t get you out of there quicker.”  
  
Bucky shrugged, looking down.  
  
"We're grateful to you for everything you did to help find Bucky and bring him home," Steve said to Ness.    
  
"I tried to do my part," Ness said, "but in the end, it was your infiltration that brought down Pierce's operation."    
  
"Thank you, sir," Steve said.  "We're prepared to testify against Pierce if need be."  
  
“Sergeant Barnes, this is Professor Erskine,” Natasha said.    
  
“Very glad to meet you, Sergeant,” Erskine said as Bucky shook his hand. Bucky angled himself with his left side slightly away from the professor.  
  
Natasha stood to ring for Barton. "Have you eaten? Or, would you like a drink?" she asked them.  
  
“I’ve got a hollow leg these days,” Steve admitted.    
  
Normally at this hour, Steve would have asked for a cocktail, maybe a Manhattan, but Ness looked to be drinking something soft, and Steve didn't want to rock the boat. Peggy was sipping a cup of tea. Erskine was drinking hot chocolate, and Steve detected a whiff of peppermint schnapps.    
  
"Buck, you want a root beer float? Natasha has her own freezer full of ice cream!"  
  
Bucky gave Steve the old half smile that Steve knew so well. "Two of those, if that would be all right," he said to Natasha.  
  
Ness darted an inquisitive look from Steve to Bucky and back again. “He still can’t speak?"  
  
"Not yet," Steve admitted.    
  
Bucky laid a finger across his lips and touched Steve's ear.  
  
"He says, when we were kids, I was practically deaf, so when we had to be quiet around my ma so she could sleep, we made up signs," Steve translated.  
  
"He just said all that?" Ness said, dubious. Erskine watched everything closely with a calm smile on his lips, saying nothing.  
  
Bucky tapped Steve's shoulder and crossed his fingers.    
  
"We've been best friends as long as I can remember," Steve explained.  "We practically have one brain between us."  
  
Bucky rapped at Steve's temple lightly with his knuckle and cocked an ear.  
  
"He says the one brain is his," Steve said wryly, smiling at their old banter.  
  
"If you say so," Ness said, laughing a bit.  
  
"I remember at school we would try to devise that type of scheme to use after lights out, but we never really succeeded," Peggy said.  
  
Natasha laughed.  "As I recall, our primary concern was if anyone had managed to hide away any biscuits."    
  
"Very true," Peggy acknowledged.  
  
Peggy and Natasha were seated in their customary chairs, with Erskine to Natasha’s right and Ness to Peggy’s left.  The sofa was open for them to sit, so Steve sat at one end, but Bucky sat down close beside him. Bucky grabbed Steve's hand and traced a swooping spiral into his palm: his initials, JBB. Steve suppressed his reaction — his friends didn't need to know how even as boys they had secretly claimed one another by writing their initials onto each other's skin.  
  
"We spelled out the words when we couldn't figure out a good sign," Steve gave a modified translation.    
  
"TSTFY" Bucky wrote on Steve's hand.  
  
"Bucky wants to testify against Pierce," Steve reiterated.  
  
Peggy took a deep breath.  "That won't be necessary," she said.    
  
"What?" Steve said, outraged.  "Don't they realize what he's done...?"  
  
"He's dead," Ness said, succinct and without emotion.  "His lawyer had arranged for bail, but he collapsed before he even left the station."  
  
"Collapsed — why?" Steve asked. The dream he had the night before about Pierce drifted across his consciousness.  
  
"His heart," Natasha said. Her words rang in Steve’s ears like déjà vu.  "The doctors are saying the shock of his arrest must have been too much for him.  A few of his supporters are trying to blame Ness for serving the warrant for his arrest."  
  
"What?" Steve said hotly.  “Get us a good reporter— we'll get the truth out.”  
  
Bucky gave Steve a baleful look and shoved his left fist deeper into his pocket.  
  
Peggy leveled her hard stare onto Steve, and he couldn't look away.  "No one will believe the truth," Peggy said.  "The truth — that Steve Rogers, the fragile artist, barely my size, is now over six feet tall and built like Johnny Weissmuller?  That James Barnes, the missing cop, is back, but now has a clawed silver hand, and by the way, he can no longer speak?"  
  
"Fragile?" Steve echoed angrily, but before he could say anymore, Barton strolled in and delivered their root beer floats.  
  
Bucky took his drink and sipped it delicately while giving Steve doe eyes.  
  
Steve snorted. "I was never fragile," he muttered.    
  
“You certainly are not fragile now,” Erskine mildly replied.  
  
“Pierce is no longer a problem,” Ness pointed out, “but this Johann Schmidt is still at large. His body wasn’t found.”  
  
Bucky frowned deeply and shuddered, closing his eyes and shaking his head to ward off the memories.  
  
“Do you remember much of what they did to you, Buck?” Steve asked.  
  
Bucky held out his right hand, wavering it from side to side.    
  
“Would you consider working with me to prepare an affidavit?” Peggy inquired.  
  
Bucky nodded decisively, and Peggy smiled her approval.  "Even though Pierce won't go to trial, it will be good to have a legal record of what's been done to you.  And, it will support the hunt for Schmidt, and anyone else who may have been involved."  
  
Ness nodded.  “I’d like to keep you men on,” he said.  “I know you’ve been through a lot, so we wouldn’t do a lot right away, but it seems clear to me that this Cleveland operation is only the tip of the iceberg. Pierce, Schmidt, Zola — and more in Europe?”  
  
“That’s right,” Natasha said. “Ivan Ivchenko has worked closely with those three, both in the States and abroad, and we also suspect Aleksander Lukin in Prague.”  
  
Ness shook his head.   “American law enforcement can’t do much of anything in Prague right now.”  
  
“Why?” Steve asked.  
  
Peggy looked grim.    
  
“Germany took Prague last week,” Natasha said softly.    
  
Steve hadn’t been awake long enough to catch up with the papers.  No one said anything for a moment.  
  
“We’ll do whatever it takes,” Steve said.  He looked at Bucky as he spoke.  Bucky nodded.  
  
“I appreciate that,” Ness said.  “I want to know more about what you can do.  And, I want a better look at that arm.”  
  
“Can’t that wait?” Steve demanded, defensive on Bucky’s behalf.  
  
“Wait for what exactly?” Peggy asked.  
  
Steve glowered.  Nothing irked him more than people trying to lay claims on Bucky’s body.    
  
“You don’t gotta show nothing to anyone, Bucky,” Steve hissed under his breath.    
  
Bucky lowered his head, letting his hair fall around his face.  He released a deep exhale, and began unbuttoning his shirt.    
  
Steve gritted his teeth and set his jaw, angry at his friends for breaching Bucky’s privacy.  
  
Bucky opened his shirt.  He was still wearing a sleeveless undershirt, which made Steve feel slightly better about his modesty.   He slipped his outer shirt off his shoulder and pulled out his arm for everyone to see.  
  
Steve was torn by complicated emotion.  The arm was beautiful, and it was Bucky, so it was perfect — but at the same time, exhibiting the arm made it seem monstrous.   He didn’t want anyone gawking at Bucky, even if they were his friends.    
  
Erskine was practically holding his breath.  “Glorious,” he breathed.  
  
Bucky’s brows creased together as he continued to look down.    
  
“Already told you it looks good,” Steve pointed out to Bucky in a whisper.  
  
“May I?” Erskine said, lifting his hand.  
  
Bucky lifted his left arm and extended it toward Erskine.  Steve held himself still and tried to be calm as Erskine lightly felt the surface of Bucky’s arm, examining the fine silver scales and the slightly cold temperature.  The scientist peered closely at the claws, but did not touch.    
  
Steve was relieved when Erskine backed away.  Bucky put his arm back into his shirt sleeve and began to rebutton his shirt.  The silver-scaled left hand with its clawed fingers was just as nimble as the right.  
  
“Good heavens,” Erskine breathed as he sank back into his chair.  “Schmidt has certainly made some advances.”  
  
Steve glared at Erskine.  “We saw Schmidt’s face,” he said.  “He looks like the devil himself!”  
  
Erskine sighed.  “These formulae, despite our attempts to study them scientifically, do not always produce replicable results.  I told you this already.  The procedure is heavily dependent on the mindset of the subject.”  
  
Bucky wiggled the clawed fingers of his left hand.  “What kind of mindset gives a man a dragon arm?” Steve asked, not really expecting an answer.  
  
“He believes in the struggle of good against evil,” Erskine said, “but thinks of himself as neutral.  He would rather be powerful than conform to the world’s expectations. His personal beauty has been a mixed blessing, but the arm requires a more discerning eye. “  
  
Bucky turned his head slightly toward Steve and gave him a solemn wink.       
  
“Are you saying Bucky is afraid of a fight?” Steve asked.  Bucky had always been the cooler head of the two.  
  
Bucky snorted and punched Steve in the arm.     
  
“Not at all,” Erskine said, leaning back.  “For the past two and a half months you have fought with every fiber of your being, and you have emerged victorious.  Clearly, Sergeant Barnes has done much the same.”  
  
Bucky stuck out his pinky and Steve resolutely shook it with his own.  
  
“If you men decide to come in, let me know,” Ness said, standing.  
  
“I think it’s more a question of when, than if,” Steve said, “but we’ll have to wait a few days to get Bucky back on his feet.”  
  
“Understood,” Ness said. He shook hands with everyone, wishing them good night, and took his leave.  
  
“Sergeant, would you allow me to take some data tomorrow, run a few tests?”  Erskine asked.    
  
Steve fought to control his reaction.  He didn’t say a word.   After a moment’s consideration, Bucky nodded.  
  
“Excellent,” Erskine said, smiling widely.  He too said goodnight, and Steve let out a breath.  He respected the professor, and appreciated the great benefits of his transformation, but there was something a little too avid in the scientist’s gaze. He had once been part of the group he now disavowed. So far, he had proved trustworthy, and he had done so much for Steve, but his probing intellect gave Steve cold chills, too reminiscent of Zola for Steve’s comfort.  
  
Bucky bumped Steve’s shoulder with his own.  Steve was a worrier, but Bucky encouraged him to look on the brighter side.  
  
“How are you feeling, really,” Natasha asked them.    
  
Bucky wiggled his fingers, holding up five on one hand and two on the other.    
  
“Pretty good,” Steve said.  “Really, Buck?  You were really down for the count when I found you, completely out of it — and now you’re a seven?”  Steve had always added at least one and half to his number; it was irksome and depressing never getting much above a five.    
  
Bucky made a contemplative mouth.  Pointing at his head he made a six, with a rueful twist to his eyebrows, and then he rated his silver arm as a ten.  
  
“A ten?” Steve said, astounded.  
  
Bucky reconsidered, and added a two to his original ten, smirking.    
  
“Huh,” Steve said, comparing Bucky’s arm to his own, much bigger and stronger now than he had ever dreamed.  He remembered how Bucky had torn the pipe away from the furnace so easily, and decided to accept Bucky’s evaluation.  
  
“But how did you get your memories back?” Steve demanded.  Peggy and Natasha  listened eagerly, since Natasha had her own memory problems to worry about.    
  
Bucky thought for a moment, then began to sign.    
  
“Everything was blank, dark, no good. Pain, bad pain.  Then, light… then, you.  Then, SHIT.”  Bucky didn’t bother to spell Schmidt’s name all the way, and his abbreviation made Steve snicker.  “Time to remember.”  
  
Steve saw the sincerity in Bucky’s eyes.  Both of them had begun to understand the strange holiday quality of the time they’d spent together after their flight from Zola’s lab.  Neither of them had remembered the other, but they knew each other anyway, drawn to each other irresistibly. Despite everything, Steve had set Bucky free with hardly any hesitation. When Schmidt threatened Steve, the crisis had awakened Bucky and brought him back — all the way back.  
  
“I remember,” Steve said, and made their sign for everything.    
  
“Me too,” Bucky signed with a smile.    
  
Steve thought of the months of current events he needed to catch up on.  The Nazis were bad news, but ignoring them wouldn’t make them go away.  Johann Schmidt was on the loose.    Zola and Ivchenko were also at large.  If they went to work for the Nazis, what might happen?  
  
Bucky tapped Steve’s forehead, and Steve sighed. “Too much to worry about tonight,” Steve said.    
  
“There’s no use in worrying,” Peggy said.  “Relax, and enjoy the good company.  There will still be plenty of bad men in the world tomorrow.”  
  
Bucky made a gesture of drinking and wrote an M on Steve’s palm.    
  
“What does he want?” Natasha said.    
  
“Manhattans,” Steve said with a grin.    
  
They talked and laughed into the evening.  Steve didn’t feel the drink, and he could tell Bucky didn’t either — but they did enjoy the company, because Peggy always had the right idea.    
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are still a few loose ends.... :) 
> 
> In case you are wondering, Steve and Bucky do not know ASL. Oralism was fairly prevalent during Steve and Bucky's era, so I doubt Steve would have been encouraged to learn sign, especially since his hearing loss was not profound. The signs that Steve and Bucky use, they came up with on their own, a combination of shared gestures and palm writing.


	23. SSR

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peggy gets some news.

Steve and Bucky went to bed early and slept close, wrapped up in one another.  Since his friends had seen his new arm, Bucky overcame his dread of touching Steve with it. Falling asleep cradled in Bucky’s arms like he always had been, Steve wondered if he would wake up with the imprint of fine scales pressed into his skin.  
  
Steve dreamed, vivid dreams that shifted and changed like water, and Bucky was there in the dreams with him.  Sometimes they were in their old cold water walk-up on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights, then they were in Natasha’s palatial home, then the old apartment where Steve had lived with his ma, or the tailor’s office, or the flophouse where they’d first stayed in Cleveland. Sometimes they were just walking around, in New York, or in Cleveland, or in cities he didn’t recognize.  Sometimes they were in rooms he didn’t remember, or in a tent in a snowy forest.  Steve recognized the places from his own memories, but he wondered if somehow the places he didn’t recognize might be visions of the future.    
  
There were people moving through the dreams — Peggy and Natasha, Ness, Erskine, even Howard Stark and Natasha’s butler Barton, Tim Dugan, and others besides — but also the evil men responsible for so much suffering: Schmidt, Zola, Ivchenko, and others Steve didn’t yet know by their faces.  How strange, to dream so clearly of men whose faces he’d never even seen.    
  
He dreamed of Schmidt surrounded by fire — but Schmidt vanished into the darkness, and Steve knew he was still on the loose.  He dreamed he and Bucky were seated in a dark theatre, and on the screen before them was a globe of the earth, with a thick darkness hovering over Germany, spreading into the neighboring countries like a specter of death. Steve burned inside with a fervent need to do something, to stop the insanity racing like wildfire from nation to nation. The darkened globe faded back from his dream, replaced by a grainy, black and white image, a newspaper photograph of Pierce’s fallen body.  
  
"Did we really do that?" Steve asked himself, remembering how his hand with Bucky’s had closed in a ghostly fist around Pierce’s heart.  
  
"I guess we did," Bucky answered.  "Do you wish we hadn’t?"  
  
Bucky was next to him in the old theatre where they used to go for Saturday matinees.  He burned bright in the darkness like an angel.  His long hair flowed in waves down to his shoulders, his blue eyes shone like crystal, and his arm glittered like the surface of the ocean in brilliant sunlight.  
  
"I didn’t know what we were doing," Steve answered.  "We murdered him, Buck — in cold blood."   
  
Bucky frowned and shook his head.  "He got what was coming to him."  
  
"But we don’t have the right to make that decision — we can’t just be judge, jury, and executioner," Steve insisted.    
  
"I remember when we were little," Bucky said.  "I remember, on the playground, how you tried to run the whole place — you were there whenever any little kid got shoved, or something went missing, or names were called.  You couldn’t always back it up, but you always tried to put things right, keep the rough kids on the straight and narrow."  
  
"Maybe," Steve said, "but that don’t mean I woulda killed him if I’d known what was really gonna happen."   
  
"I don’t know," Bucky rejoined. "I came out here to Cleveland — at the risk of life and limb, you might say —  to stop the Kingsbury Run murders, and in the end, that’s what we did."   
  
For a second Steve witnessed a nightmare landscape of limbless torsos and scattered bones strewn along on the muddy shores of Lake Erie… Pierce chuckling to himself as he packaged a woman’s desecrated remains in Bucky’s royal blue blazer… and for a split second that same woman screaming in horror as she stared at her own red and leathery flesh, the transformation Schmidt had wrought upon her. …  
  
Steve forced the image out of his mind, reached across Bucky, laid his hand on Bucky’s silver one, and they were sitting close and comfortable on Steve’s ma’s beat up old sofa.  
  
"You think we oughta stay working with Ness?"  Steve asked.    
  
"Probably," Bucky said.  "What else are we gonna do?"  
  
"I could paint," Steve suggested.  "I could get as many commissions as I want from the folks Natasha knows."   The drawing room dazzled for a moment around them.    
  
"Yeah," Bucky said.  "I know you’ve always wanted that, but I also know you’re gonna feel obliged to do something about these madmen…"  
  
As they spoke, an enormous shape loomed onto the theatre screen — a skull wreathed in tentacles.    
  
"What is it?" Steve couldn’t help asking.  The lurid red and black symbol repulsed Steve’s mind with the reek of evil.    
  
Bucky shook his head.  "They’re Nazis for sure, but I think it goes deeper than that.  I saw that thing on papers that passed by Pierce, and Schmidt… did you ever notice it with Zola?"  
  
Steve thought about it.  As he searched his memory, Lernaean Labs cropped up around them, dismal and gray, steeped in wrongness.    
  
"I think so.  I think I saw it on some of the labels when Zola was testing different formulae.  And Ivchenko — this is kinda strangest —it was embossed in the leather of his wallet."   
  
Steve remembered that fateful interview, sitting down in Zola’s office, the quick flash of Ivchenko’s wallet as he distracted Steve with a business card before capturing his attention with the flash of a golden band.  Steve remembered his desperate idea of helping Bucky’s undercover operation.  Steve had a bargain with Bucky, that he’d never ask about names or details, as long as Bucky would at least give him the addresses of suspect operations, in case some unnamed thing went wrong — and then it did. Before his last mission, Steve had never needed to chase Bucky down. Steve’s venture to Zola’s workplace would have been catastrophic but for the fact that he did end up saving Bucky in the end.    
  
"Schmidt had a leather coat with that skull on the buttons," Bucky said with disgust. For a moment, Bucky was back in that dreadful basement room, strapped to that despicable table.    
  
"It must be a kind of secret sign," Steve said, deliberately imagining the dozens of pulp mystery novels he and Bucky used to read.    
  
"A secret sigil of evil," Bucky quipped from the floor, as he relaxed on the cushions from off Steve’s ma’s couch. "So they’ll know each other."  
  
"Ugh," Steve said, not wanting to think about how many people in the world might be wearing that sigil.  "But how did we find Pierce, in our heads, like? Could we find the other ones the same way?"  
  
"What if we did?" Bucky said.  He raised his brows in a query, lifted his silver hand, and closed his fist hard.  
  
"We’d get dirt on them and bring them down, nice and legal," Steve asserted, swiveling toward Bucky in Ness’s office chair.  "We wouldn’t use whatever that was we did to Pierce, except in an emergency".    
  
"If you say so," Bucky said.  "Seems like it would save the U. S. Government a lot of cash if we just took all these guys out in our sleep."  In a flash, Bucky was shaking the hand of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Eleanor looked on as the President lay a medal around Bucky’s neck.   That, Steve thought, had to be wishful thinking.  
  
"Now," Bucky said, stepping toward Steve and turning him around the dance floor in Natasha’s grand salon, "wouldn’t you like to think about something else, just for a little while?"  
  
"What kind of something else?" Steve asked.    
  
"All those things we were doing before you remembered how I always worked in vice," Bucky said, with only a hint of bitterness.  
  
"Hey!" Steve protested.  "I didn’t like it because you weren’t safe, and I didn’t want anything I did to make you think of anything someone else might have done to you."  
  
"That ain’t likely," Bucky scoffed. "When I’m with you, I ain’t thinking about the job."  
  
Steve relaxed into Bucky’s hold and let Bucky lead as they swept across  Natasha’s herringbone floor, his dreamself smaller than Bucky once more, but hale and well-coordinated, with healthy lungs and a strong heart.  
  
Steve had never been a great lead, and besides, he didn’t really see the point in dancing with dames.  The only person he ever wanted to dance with was Bucky — confident, musical, graceful Bucky, who smiled and laughed as Steve floated across the floor in his arms, behind closed doors.  
  
Now, in a dream, phantoms of their friends laughed and mingled all around, oblivious to the two men dancing, staring with at each other with abandon, smiling open smiles of adoration.  Bucky led Steve closer, and closer, till the polite gap between them was gone, and they were moving as one.    
  
Steve smiled into Bucky’s beautiful eyes, all traces of the ravages of his ordeal vanished from his dream visage.  Bucky too was young and strong and perfect, a vision of his perfected self — but still with the gorgeous silver arm.  
  
Then they were kissing and nothing else mattered.  Steve gave himself over to Bucky, melting into Bucky’s embrace — but kissing back with a confidence he’d never felt before.  In this dream, he could feel Bucky’s love as something palpable, like a blanket of soft warm wool that had always held Steve safe and warm in Bucky’s arms.  
  
They floated into the perfect bed Natasha had given them— and it was the bed in the flophouse, the tailor’s cot, the old couch cushions on the floor, the creaky iron frame of their Montague place — always perfect, because nothing mattered to them except loving each other, winding as close together as possible — and in this dream no limits remained — every barrier fell away as their sleeping souls drifted free and intermingled — filling them with all-consuming love and a bliss that defied description.    
  
In the morning, Steve cracked one eye open as the dawn light began to brighten the little square of sky he could see through the window. Bucky’s head was heavy on his arm, and he was pressed against Bucky’s back, happy to be together, grateful to be alive.  He wanted to let Bucky sleep, but he couldn’t resist pressing a kiss to the nape of Bucky’s neck, pressing a little closer to his back, gathering him even more tightly in his arms.  A possessive tenderness surged through his heart.  He would do anything to keep this man safe; it scared him a little, thinking how he had killed a man in cold blood to keep Bucky out of harm’s reach.  Sure, he’d thought he was dreaming, but he hadn’t even hesitated.  
  
Bucky grumbled, low in his throat, raspier than Bucky’s voice had ever been.  Steve worried that Bucky might never get his voice back, but at the same time, he rejoiced that they could still communicate so easily in their own private language — not only that, but during the vivid dreams of the night before, they had communicated freely, deeply.    
  
“Bucky,” Steve whispered, “I love you.”  He wanted to say it first thing every morning, last thing every night, and as many times every day as he could possibly get away with.  
  
Bucky rolled to face Steve but didn’t open his eyes, and once he got his arms situated he tapped Steve right in the small of the back four times, a lazy smile on his face.  
  
Steve tapped back, and then he was stroking Bucky’s smooth and silky skin, kissing Bucky fervently.  Those precious days they’d shared before Bucky had been retaken had broken down the barriers keeping Steve back from loving Bucky as thoroughly with his body as he did with his heart and soul.  Steve kissed Bucky’s soft, luscious lips, then slid down the bed, taking Bucky into his mouth, relishing the feel of Bucky shivering with pleasure, shuddering his release into Steve’s throat, sighing with contentment in Steve’s arms.    
  
After a moment, Bucky hefted himself onto his elbows and rummaged around in the sidetable drawer.  He grinned widely at Steve as he came up with a small jar.  He twisted off the lid, opened it and dipped in with two fingers of his right hand.  As Bucky reached behind himself, Steve’s heart began to pound harder than it had even when they’d been fighting for their lives.  
  
“Now? Here?” he asked, trembling with nervous anticipation.  
  
Bucky nodded, serene as he kissed Steve, calm and peaceful, while Steve was shaking like an eager dog.    
  
Slow and easy, Bucky’s silver hand told Steve, his dagger-sharp claws leaving trails of goosebumps as they glided harmlessly across Steve’s skin.  
  
Bucky rolled again to lie on his left side, and with his slick right hand he guided Steve home, breathing out as he took Steve in.    
  
The heat, the slick grip, so tight, so good — the mind-altering fact that he was moving inside Bucky — Steve knew he couldn’t last long. He pressed his lips to Bucky’s neck, buried every one of his senses in Bucky, tried and failed not to be overtaken —and with a shout, he came so hard he almost blacked out.  
  
Not bad, Bucky’s silver hand told him when he was able to open his eyes.  He laughed, and the sunshine laughed with him, bright on their bedclothes, a new day christened perfectly, the first day of the rest of their lives.  
  
—  
  
After a week or so of lounging about Natasha’s place, Steve putting the last finishing touches on the portrait, Bucky working with Peggy on his affidavit and with Erskine to document as much as he could remember of his ordeal with Schmidt, Ness sent Peggy home in the middle of the day with incredible news.  
  
“Roosevelt called Ness today,” she said.  Steve had never seen her dark eyes glittering so brightly.  
  
_What?_ Bucky signed expressively.    
  
“President. Franklin D. Roosevelt.  Called Ness.  He’s setting up a new Bureau.  A secret Bureau.  He’s asked us to head it up.”  
  
Peggy was bouncing with excitement.  Steve had never imagined anything like it.  
  
“Okay?” Steve said.  
  
“It’s called the Strategic Scientific Reserve,” she explained.  “Our affidavit went straight to the President, and he called Ness to tell him.  Do whatever it takes.  Do. Whatever. It takes.” Peggy could hardly speak, she was so elated.    
  
“Peggy, should I pour you a scotch?” Steve asked.  
  
“Yes!” she shouted, collapsing into her favorite parlor chair, arms and legs thrown wide.  “Make it a bloody triple!”  
  
Steve opened the cabinet, reached to the back, and poured Peggy a generous drink from one of Natasha’s best bottles.    
  
Bucky stared at Peggy.  Natasha looked worried.  
  
“There’s more,” Natasha said.    
  
“I’m co-director,” Peggy whispered, eyes wide.    
  
She looked around the room, and jumped to her feet.  “I’m co-director! with Ness! of the bloody SSR!” She collapsed back into her chair again.  
  
Natasha looked a little pale and sat down.    
  
“Natasha, what’s wrong?” Steve asked.    
  
Natasha’s face was perfectly blank.  “I mustn’t tell them.  You can’t tell me.  You can’t let me know any of this.  Peggy?”   Natasha’s beautiful clear green eyes flooded with tears she refused to let brim over.    
  
“Natasha,” Peggy said.  “No, darling, listen. I trust you, implicitly — but we’ll let you know just what you need to know.  It will be all right, I promise.  As long as — I mean to say — I assume you’ll still want to work with us? As a sort of double agent?”  
  
Natasha looked from Peggy to Steve and Bucky.  “I trust you more than anyone I’ve ever known,” she said.  “I can’t trust myself, but I trust you.”  
  
“We’ll do everything we can to keep you safe, I promise,” Steve said and Bucky nodded, moving to take her hand.    
  
“I’ll be fine,” Natasha said, regaining a little of her usual fire. “It’s the rest of you I’m worried about.”  
  
Peggy smiled.  “We’ve already begun drawing up a list of people we want to bring in.  I think Stark, what do you think?”  
  
Steve rolled his eyes, but he nodded. “Better with us than against us, that’s for sure.”     
  
They looked at Bucky and he gave a simple thumbs up, but at the same time he circled his finger near his temple.  Steve laughed.    
  
“And Erskine,” Peggy said.  They all nodded.  The professor had special knowledge of the group they were going up against.  Steve believed him to be a good man — but it was a gambit that had to be played regardless.    
  
Barton ambled into the room to announce that lunch was ready.  He flinched as everyone in the room turned to size him up with a speculative eye.    
  
“Budapest, hm?” Peggy said to Natasha, who responded with a mild Russian nod and shrug.    
  
“What?” Barton said, breaking his habitual silence.  
  
“Nothing bad,” Steve said, but Barton bared his teeth at Bucky’s predatory grin.    
  
They would all need to get ready for life in interesting times.    
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this story. Please let me know your thoughts in comments -- things you liked or felt didn't play out exactly as you expected -- whatever strikes you. I really value your comments of all kinds!
> 
> I am weirdly happy with the dragon arm and the psychic powers. I was weaned on Andre Norton, and I guess it still shows!
> 
> Natasha was very interesting to write in this story -- a very different iteration of the character than the Black Widow raised as the perfect Red Room operative. Clint's little cameo role was also tantalizing to me... I think a lot of his backstory is the same, except that he met Natasha working a heist in Budapest, latched on and never let go. Laura is described as his sister in this story.... we don't get to meet her ... but at least we caught a glimpse of Becky!
> 
> So this was my fill for "caged and confined". I posted the first chapter on April 25, 2015 -- and here is is Dec 18 -- eight months later!! I'm astonished and really happy to have finished. Thanks so much for all of your encouragement, over these 54,000 words. Not that many by fandom standards, but a real accomplishment for me, as my third completed novel-length piece. 
> 
> And yes, the Howling Commandos will all be recruited in short order, though I don't plan to write their derring do as they navigate the great cities of Europe one step ahead of Hydra. :D

**Author's Note:**

> please let me know what you think! Your comments and kudos are so much appreciated and really help keep me going with this (for me) very long and convoluted story. Fear not! I shall persevere to the happiest of endings!! :)


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